Fantastic Parallels
by Vanya-Deyja
Summary: Yami Sennen's new books are a smash hit based off dreams of his heroic alter ego Atemu. Some of Yami's characters aren't the least bit happy about his success however and mysterious warnings lead to a fateful encounter with Yugi Mouto. Y/Y
1. Chapter 1

Why hello there lovelies! As promised I come bearing some new YGO stuff for the new year. This is going to be an ongoing fic and currently (surprisingly) I don't know how long it will be. I actually haven't finished writing it yet which is odd for me.

I'll have you know as well this is something rather special for me to be giving to you. I've been tinkering with this concept for about five or six _years_ and trying to translate it into YuGiOh's taken ten or twelve different drafts playing around with different settings and plots etcetera. Now it's _finally_ cooperating I'm quite happy to share it with you and hopefully you all have some fun with it because I'm very interested in your responses.

**UPDATES:** I'll try to keep updates to every fortnight but the university exam period might disrupt that. Chapters will be a moderately consistent length in order for me to give you fairly regular updates.

**WARNINGS:** surreal quasi-religious nonsense, swearing, enough references to start a war, explicit sex (much later you eager beavers) and lots and _lots_ of lies.

* * *

Chapter 1: Act 1: Another time, another place, another life maybe?

_Atemu was familiar now with the nexus where physical, emotional and spiritual pain intersected overlapping to form a new face of agony. He was however, when he woke in the Hive pressed between the warm bodies of fellow Reapers, now privy to a new sensation that life had never relinquished to him previously. The rush of victorious and triumphant jubilation that adrenaline sent pounding through his body lulled every wound into submission at the instruction of his heart which felt as though it was full to bursting like the taunt skin of a water balloon. _

_The heat of the artificial sun assaulted the Reapers as they woke within the dusty, arcane, structures of the mine like Hive but Atemu found nothing in the burn of the climate but further reason to celebrate. They were still active, still alive. So many of them had survived the frigid brutality of the Seers that they could return here as brothers to celebrate. The Veil was safe. Atemu had, for the first occasion in this lifetime, done his duty fully realized or not. He had achieved something here his desk job back home could never mimic with all its promises of safety and tedium. This was why men went to war he realized. This rush of blood, this thrill of survival, the joy that brought him, laughing, to boisterous tears as the Reapers closed ranks to chant till the sound rumbled like proud thunder off the interior structures of the Hive down the deepest corners of the earth under their feet. This, right now, was what it felt like to have pride. _

_To Atemu the blood mingled with his war paint gave an electrifying element to his form a badge of honour on his costumed battle gear. The worn grip of his boots proved he'd earned his stripes. The sweat clinging to his back and across his brown gave him the scent of a victor. His body had been transformed into a trophy. The bodies pressed around him near the mounted ceremonial bonfires, which blazed thick smoke and cast unnatural shadows altering the Hive till it seemed the very picture of Hell, bore the same marks of confrontation. Anyone who was still standing and yet unscathed, like the Watchers and sombre Cobalt, had been shuffled off to the balconies. The Reapers would not shame themselves by dancing, celebrating with, and embracing cowards. _

_The only figure in the wave of bodies that stood pristine but enfolded, accepted, into the ranks was, of course, Atreyu Damestaire whose power Atemu could sense radiating like an exploding star well before he made him out in the crowd. As beautiful as ever Atreyu once again seemed to straddle the definition of male and female in the delicately slender but steely quality of his appearance. His glow was white, clear, and undiminished by the golden light of the fires and it came not from the diamonds peppering his form, or the perfectly pure linen, or the steel of his lance but from his bare regions of his form, his face, his eyes… _

_Not for the first time, as Atemu approached, he could appreciate the devotion some Reapers carried for the Faens, for Atreyu's sparse kind, that some had held with them into battle for billions of years. He had seen Atreyu's power many times since having the good fortune to encounter the phenomena, the living star, that Atreyu represented and he marvelled in it still. These creatures, the Faens, the Reapers' oldest allies and dearest siblings had themselves earned every accolade Atemu could grant them._

"_The conquering hero returns." Atreyu greeted tangling his arms gently round Atemu's firm shoulders. He was an entity so soft yet, as they brushed, Atemu could feel the pulse of immense power burning electrically under Atreyu's skin. _

"_Not so much," he deflected beaming, "I still couldn't unlock the full potential of my Core. I'm not a true Specialist yet, just another Reaper, but for the moment I can't think of anything better."_

"_One day," Atreyu assured him in that evanescent knowing way he had about him, "you'll be a Champion."_

"_And you'll find Jenzar Fraveous." Atemu promised. He knew, as indomitable as Atreyu's immortal soul was, there was nothing the Faen wanted more than to be reunited with his lover of four billion years. Atemu was still young, he couldn't comprehend something so vast, or someone as mythic and legendary among the Reapers as Atreyu's Champion._

"_I'll introduce you."_

…

Yami Sennen, on the other hand, would never accustom himself to the squealing of teenage girls. He thoroughly appreciated their enthusiasm (what man didn't want to be so revered by a hall of lovely young women?) but his eardrums certainly thought there was something to be said for the gloomy clapping of the audiences at book signings. Still as he finished reading under the harsh fluorescent lights from his own, prized, copy of the newly published book he experienced that ever satisfying rush of knowing he'd done something to the liking of his readers.

"Alright!" The announcer clapped exuberantly, probably more than was convincing or called for, rattling the microphone in his hands amongst the rows of teenagers assembled at the convention. "So you've heard it here right from the horse's mouth. I know some of you probably got it on your phones too." he teased to a particularly energetic group of girls. "That was the end of the… third?"

"Second," Yami chuckled into his own microphone on the low stage, though he needn't have given how several people hollered their own corrections.

"Sorry! Sorry!" He laughed. "_Second_ book in the _Trance_series by our good friend Mister Yami Sennen, now are we all pumped for a little Q and A?"

The room was. Yami had to laugh. Uproarious shouting could raise the roof and rattle the walls even in the vast domed convention centre where he was resting his feet this afternoon. It was ridiculous that there were people who would fly him away from home for this and even more so that there were people who would come and listen.

"Okay how bout we start with this lovely lady over here?" The announcer supposed pressing the microphone into the hands of a very well dressed Pikachu though not before warning: "Now remember ya can't ask about politics, religion or sex."

"Nah you can ask about sex," Yami intervened from the stage forced to laugh in the face of the immediate wolf whistling that followed. "No! No! Just kidding, we better not do that, they'll never ask me back again!"

"He's right," the announcer warned playfully, "we wouldn't!"

"Okay," Pikachu was very pleased with her lot in life. Sweet thing must've been about fourteen? The things parents let their kids read these days! Or was it just Yami considered his content more mature than it was? "So two questions: is there going to be a third book? And is there going to be a movie?"

"Definitely a third book," Yami assured, "but no movie I know of. Unless someone wants to offer me a movie deal, which would be much appreciated if there any movie producers here, just as an aside."

"Are the Faens going to get more screen time?" A stocky boy mixed his metaphors next. "We barely get to see Trey!"

"Yeah I know," he sighed, "I love the Faens. Trey, Denn, Vegas, all three of them… Look, keep your eyes open in the next one. I can't promise you anything specific yet, I'm just drafting, but definitely keep an eye out."

"What about Jenzar?"

"Maybe," Yami diverted uneasily swaying on his feet, one hand shoved in his pocket as he laughed. "I know I'm useless but I just finished writing this one!"

Another ripple of giggles ran through the audience.

"Who's your least favourite character?"

"_Least?_" He repeated amusedly. "That's got to be Cobalt. All the Atlantians are sort of douche bags. They're my least favourite race too. Sure the Seers are going to destroy the Veil and all order in the universe but, hey, the Atlantians are jerks. I don't think anyone likes them really-"

A few members of the audience raised their heads in contradiction.

"Oh! Apparently not! They do have some fans. That's good."

"How'd you come up with the premise for the books?"

"Uh," Yami strained his memory more for show than actual effort, he didn't like this question. His answer always sounded silly to him, unprofessional, so he preferred to lie: "Research. That's a really boring answer I know. I do a lot of reading for the books into old myths, religious texts, stuff like that. I was playing around with a few ideas originally, reincarnation and John Carter and that sort of thing, and this idea wandered into my head from the ether."

"Where'd the name Atemu come from?"

"My father's family is Egyptian. It was my Grandfather's name and it's very connected to those ancient polytheistic sun gods: Amun, Aten, Ra… so I went with it." Another lie but those things had certainly been part of Yami's considerations.

"Would Trey and Atemu ever get together?"

"Not in anything I'm planning but I'm sure there's _loads_ of fanfiction on it."

Now that got a reaction.

* * *

The last thing Yami wanted when he escaped his beloved public was to pick up a pen. Four hours at a signing booth, cramping up, and apologising for his terrible handwriting was surprisingly exhausting. There was more joy in it than when he signed for the restrained buyers who came to see him at book stores, more humour and playfulness, but that in itself was tiring. Yami wouldn't be ungrateful and complain loudly, mind you, he was a lucky, lucky, man that his work crossed so far over into sci-fi, fantasy and teen romance genres that his audience had effectively tripled over three years.

It was morose sometimes to think his early publications had gotten such little attention but then not everyone did a Rowling and ran out the gate with a smash hit did they? Least he wasn't a Virginia Woolf or a Sylvia Plath or even a Tolkien (who received pathetic notice till nearly a hundred years later or so the story went last time Yami heard it). Though, every now and again, Yami had the foul fortune of thinking to himself that he was becoming a masculine Stephanie Myer. Lord forbid, but he had to chuckle.

He smiled flicking through his phone in the back of the cab. Damn touch screens mystified him. There was a declaration of love texted from his mother, boisterous American Joey Wheeler wanted to catch up, Ishizu asking about this or that…mundane normalcy ensued. The sort of fodder his day to day generally consisted of when he wasn't playing big famous author.

His emails-

He sighed, oh lord, not this again.

_A third book Atemu? Not wise. The Gate Keeper has strict codes about the secrecy of members of the Reaper Core. Please don't make me get involved. You know I hate to meddle in the Natural World where I can help it. Please reconsider. _

_Your impatient friend, warning you for the seventh time, _

_Trey _

Yami wasn't sure why he bothered to read this trite. The first of these emails had been amusing. An eerie little joke, that wasn't without images from bad crime shows supplied by Yami's imagination concerning stalkers, really just some troll he wrote off as playing a prank on him. It was kind of flattering but when the kid (some cranky teenage boy in his mom's basement probably) refused to listen to his cordial replies and continued to hassle him like this it grated. Some people just couldn't take no for an answer. Surely there was a roleplaying site where this teenager could better spend his time rather than hassling Yami?

It sounded childish when he considered so much of his material, including the original concept he'd built this whole franchise off of, came from silly little dreams but as it did he'd become rather sensitive to influences on his sub-conscious. This kid's emails had sunk into his insidious mind recently. Now his characters were telling him off for his publishing vendettas in his dreams as well. As fascinating as a third novel centred around Atemu being strung up for revealing the secret of his alter-ego astral projecting adventures would be it wasn't really the direction Yami wanted to take things in.

Still he was a little too nice to reply "_you need a good therapist_" so he settled for closing down the screen and scrolling back to managing his bank accounts.

* * *

_Jenzar Fraveous was…_

No.

_Jenzar stood_…

Definitely not.

_In all the time Atemu had stumbled through the ranks of the Reapers he'd never been regarded with the kind of respect he found tonight. He had succeeded in discovering and quelling a serious Seer uprising, his name was no connected with Atreyu Damestaire and the Champion Amar Seirramoura _

Maybe…

Yami grumbled, worrying his face in his hands, it was all dead ends and plot holes.

Where was the satisfying next stage? Where was the logical leap in narrative to the next big bad for his hero to valiantly face down, in superb style, once and for all silencing all his critics and showcasing his true abilities? Well, not Yami's apartment apparently. He groaned slumping back into the aching grey couch which was no doubt doing his back in. He had money now he should by a new one.

Beside him the cat, fat, disinterested and contemptuous in his old age, twisted onto his back in an obvious request for Yami to cough up a decent belly rub. Lord Coco preferred making demands traditionally and was not at all thrilled with the half assed attempt Yami made of his affection a moment later after such a kind request. The cat sneezed, not because he needed to, Yami was sure it was a sneering gesture to inform him how despicably incompetent his fluffy master found him. Struck by the house cat's expression Yami tried his best to deliver a more focused chin scratch in forgiveness. Nope, that wasn't flying either, so tossing him aside with disgruntled disappointment Coco shimmied his fat ass off the couch and strut out of the room.

Great, now the cat was disappointed in him. Which was about as grand, in the generally scheme of things, as failing to meet your mother's expectations in Egyptian terms. Yami snorted throwing his hands up. Coco would leave him for the next best thing as soon as he brought home the bacon and got a girlfriend one of these days. The feline had already made eyes at Ishizu, who was much more dexterous, and one day Coco might just run off with her if Yami wasn't careful. It would serve him right too for failing to appreciate such a fine example of the feline race. What super beings they were.

He chuckled.

Yeah it was about time to crash and call it a night when he made himself giggle.

* * *

Atemu loved phasing into the Hive. Most days the Gate Keeper dropped Reapers straight into active assignments. There was very little briefing for professionals, very little explanation, which had once been terribly frustrating to Atemu until that intuitive sense of instinct had given him a guideline to hone his skills.

All Reaper work was mainly trouble shooting. Dropping into one realm or another along the Supernatural side of the Veil and managing the movement across the border or halting some infringement on the natural order. What was wrong was not always clear. What needed fixing and how to do it often worked off what Atemu considered "Wonderland Logic" and the dangers you faced were often so immense that false names and false faces were a must in maintaining a protective glamor.

Well, what was worse, he could've been a Faen.

Creatures like Atreyu received and needed no explanation of their mission. They didn't train other Reapers, like Atemu sometimes did, or work in large groups. Faens knew, innately, what fission was causing friction in the Veil and how to fix it. They were Fairies almost, totally submerged in the supernatural logic of this side of the Veil, totally aware, easily enfolded, masterful and always so enthused or nearly mischievous with their tasks.

Atemu felt immense pleasure from his successes, especially when the thrill of danger was involved, but with no current memory of his past lives (something he grossly needed to remedy if he was to improve his skills) he couldn't take the easy going pleasure from the experience Atreyu did with four billion years of experience at his fingertips. Every mission, every 'Hunt' as they called them in the Hive, was a challenge that tested him. Not to mention that as Atemu often worked alone, as was expected, he had little help in deciphering the difficulties of his task and if he failed all he could do was phase out and let the Gate Keeper send in another Reaper. Which was an intensely insulting failure for any Reaper let alone a Specialist like Atemu was tagged to be.

The Hive was quiet tonight. Everyone must've been on duty. Either that or phased out, awake, living out the mundane portion of their lives on the Natural World side of the universal Veil. It was still quite amazing for the catacomb structures of the central hub to be so barren, however, given that there were, at least, several hundred thousand Reapers and several more thousand Specialist or Champion Reapers on Earth alone (never minding the other planets which made up the universe).

The Hive was, empty or full, still gorgeous. It was ancient, arcane, it had been structured in that first life, when the universe began and order gave things shape for the first time, in a place between the Natural and Supernatural sides of the Veil. It had true texture and stability to it, like the physical world, bold mine like structures of sandstone etched over millenniums in a place where time had no effect and withered no artefact. The Hive was lucky to have ended more in the Supernatural realm than the Natural however. It formed a nexus between them, yes, but here isolated from the physical world it could never truly be destroyed by the harsher structures of the Natural World like erosion or physics. It was alive with feelings, vibes, senses, lines of power and energy that flowed in and out between life and death and what was old magic and what was new.

What Atemu loved, even more, was the appearance of his astral body. It was so imbued with mettle. A kind of energy and stamina that came from his will rather than his diet or environment. His soul, his imagination, gave him form here as a shield his core, aka his soul, more an identifier for his immortal companions than a necessity. This body was fluid, as capable as he believed it to be, capable of everything he ever wanted. It gave him such bravery to know that here no fall could hurt him, no wound was permanent, and no task was impossible. More than anything he loved this body's resistance to gravity. He loved the deep tan hue of his skin and the vermillion of his eyes… he was gushing now with self-serving happiness which would have to be done away with.

Watchers were here tonight. The Reapers weren't fond of the children who had built Atlantis as a place to sit and pass judgements on the rest of the universes' components. As a matter of fact no one was really very fond of the Watchers (the Clerics, the Guardian Angles or the Healers as they were also know) who critiqued and sat about taking no action. Atemu could appreciate why, some long time ago in a life long since passed, he and many others has destroyed Atlantis and scattered the Watchers thinly. Their arrogance was insufferable. Still Cobalt, that particularly snide hide of a man who preferred making nasty remarks at Atemu, was nowhere to be found so there was no point and no need to stir trouble with his relatives.

"Atemu Pheramora." It was a beautiful summon. How true names all managed to ring so wonderfully to the ear was a mystery to Atemu.

"Amar Seirramoura!" He greeted joyously.

It was a matter of brotherhood to show that you knew the full, true, name of your friends but here it was a mark of some prestige on Atemu's part that he was permitted to say the full name of such a legendary Champion. Champions were the greatest of the Reaper Specialists. Amar, after all, was the partner of a Faen (not Atreyu sadly who was still searching for the missing Jenzar Fraveous but another Faen called Denn Flenrous) and had been since his first life time. He was a true professional in every respect. He was someone to admire and aspire to.

"The Gate Keeper wants to see you," Amar sighed. "You've trespassed little brother."

"Trespassed?" Atemu didn't like the suggestion. It implied he'd broken the code which they all depended upon to keep order behind the scenes. "How?"

"We all know how Atemu," Amar snorted, "you've written another damn book."

Here was the nasty junction where Yami's fantasy dream world and reality intersected and it had been causing mounting problems for Atemu. The other Reapers were generally forgiving of misdeeds, everyone was an asshole in one life time or another, but some took liberty instead as an opportunity to loudly voice their opinions. Some in the Hive had been very aggressive as of late regarding the books Yami had written which were attached to his alter-ego Atemu in his dreams.

"Go see It." Amar ordered with a reassuring, good humoured, pat to Atemu's shoulder. "Go on."

* * *

The Gate Keeper was neither male nor female but given its associations in Earth culture with Hades, Hell, and the Grim Reaper Atemu tended to see it as male. The Gate Keeper was his Supervisor. Every Soul Type had one: the Christians called theirs God or Christ, the Muslims called theirs Allah, the Pagans had Gaia, the Atheist hid his behind Mother Science and Atemu had the Gate Keeper. To know him was an intensely personal relationship for a Reaper. To argue with him was painful to the heart and the disposition.

The Gate Keeper rested (though he never slept because he possessed no body and no form in the Natural World outside his children the Reapers) in the inner sanctum of the Hive as the brain of the institution which held them all together. His power hid its location from enemies, his power held them together, organised their missions, organised their reincarnations and to Atemu he appeared quite tall and imposing. The Gate Keeper was a long figure, unclear and black, with spindly fingers towering over Atemu at eight or nine feet tall.

"Atemu Pheramora." His voice was rich, generous, thick and comforting like a black boxer or a western movie star but so rasped with age. He greeted Atemu with the beckon of one long arm where the definition between fingers, hand and forearm were blurred at best. The whole limb appeared some times to be one long spider at others totally normal.

"Gate Keeper," if the Supervisor had any other name it was inaccurate and unnecessary given his duties, "you wanted me?"

"Atreyu Damestaire." The Gate Keeper called though his voice never seemed to rise.

Atemu reignited that childish joy of watching the Faens manifest from nothing in the blinding explosions of light that brought them back from the outer regions of the Veil like shining stars.

Atreyu had been hunting tonight. He was beautiful. The offset of thick leather boots, a long dark trench coat, tight gloves with his pale skin and the smooth ovals of a plastic consistency that tonight shone in a thousand different colours, circling the crown of his skull like a halo, were magical. His Needle, an extension of his magic which he used to mend holes in the Veil, was a long, narrow, silver sword tonight and it gave Atemu an impression of the sort of realm Atreyu had been hunting undercover in this time.

"Gate Keeper," Atreyu cooed.

The Faens were not children of the Gate Keeper, as the Reapers were, but as they were forbidden from speaking with each other or their Supervisor, Third-Star, for security reasons the Gate Keeper acted as guardian and commander to the Faens. Atreyu especially held such an obvious affection for him it rolled off him, loving, as though this intimidating being was some surrogate parent.

"Atemu's violations have put you in danger." The Gate Keeper swept and though he had no eyes Atemu was sure he was being ignored. "The Seers now know with certainty that you are without Jenzar Fraveous. You have no body guard, no Champion, for the time being and that makes you vulnerable."

"I-"

"You're powerful child," an odd flourish of affection in that was returned by the Gate Keeper, "but if you could face all of Chaos' armies by yourself you would have no need for Jenzar Fraveous. You're contrastingly delicate. It's one of the downsides of your core's self-perpetuating magic. We've brought in the Watchers to help us search. Finding Jenzar Fraveous must be a priority. In the meantime Atemu will escort you."

"Atemu's a baby." Atreyu defended. "He hasn't crossed the Wall. He doesn't remember his past lives. He only has his experience and abilities gathered from these short years. It won't be enough when staring down a gaggle of Seers!"

"Atemu's a Specialist. Inactive maybe but in his heart he's capable. He's proven he can handle difficult challenges and facing them consistently might help jog his memories."

"But…" Atreyu wavered quietly with something that escaped simple language. "Only Jenzar…"

"I know." The Gate Keeper swore. "Forgive me for punishing you in trying to punish him. Atemu deserves to be put to work."

"But I haven't done anything!" Atemu found himself shouting out of turn drawing the attention of both the creatures, entities, which were locked in debate.

"You've broken the number one command: _Secrecy_." The Gate Keeper rounded in an intense hiss that sent fear through every receptor of fabricated Atemu's form. His confidence drained like a breeze. "You've compromise order on a multiplicity of levels we must control the damage of. You've exposed the vulnerability of our greatest resources. You've been a fool. Till you can learn to curb your mouth you'll be stripped of privileges, privy to no intelligence, and worked till you bleed for your redemption child now _silence yourself!"_

"I understand." Atreyu mediated gently easing the harsh wave of antagonism crushing down on Atemu as the Faen reeled the Gate Keeper's attention back. "I'll keep an eye on him."

"His job is to keep you safe." The Gate Keeper clarified. "Don't be too sacrificial."

"I won't." He promised in that sweet, soft, clarity which Atreyu's voice seemed to always hold striding from round the podium towards Atemu.

* * *

Leaving the sanctum had never been a relief to Atemu since his first, tense, encounter with the Gate Keeper nearly four years ago before Yami had ever put pen to paper. He found himself quaking, unable to stop, as Atreyu glided beside him down the ramps of the Hive. Was this what it felt like to be a sinner? To be a turncoat in an age where the King cut your head from your shoulders for such treason? He'd never felt the Gate Keeper's rage directed at him. The Gate Keeper had always been such a model of patient, steadfast, placidity and to feel that second father, that first father who transcended lifetimes with Atemu, _furious_ at him…

"Don't cry." Atreyu urged in a whisper. "Crying doesn't achieve anything. We all fail sometimes and I've spent months trying to warn you."

Atemu found himself staring into Atreyu's sweet face. It was harder than he had ever seen it but there was some merciful sympathy. Was Trey mad at him too? Oh not that…

"You're a warrior. You have to pick yourself up and move forward. If you stop fighting you'll be cut down." Another of Atreyu's characteristic anecdotes. Sometimes Atemu considered that in one life time Atreyu might've been Confucius. It didn't seem unreasonable. After all Hitler had been a Watcher, not Cobalt surprisingly, but a Watcher. "Now go back and rest. Your hunts are about to get a whole lot harder."

"Do _you_ hate me also?" Atemu asked desperately. If he'd lost Atreyu as an ally in conjunction he might fall to pieces.

"A little," Atreyu confessed coolly, "but you couldn't understand how much it hurts me not to have Jenzar. So it'll pass and I'll forgive you Atemu but for now my disposition is weak. Bear with me. Go home."

Atemu had never, in the real world, known a creature as infinitely disarming, curiously delicate, and contrastingly devastating as Atreyu but neither had he ever met someone as sweet, as loving, as gentle, kind and compassionate. To hurt Atreyu's overstuffed heart, which he took so much pride in appealing too, was perhaps just as great a blow to hear crystallised as losing the Gate Keeper's patience.

"Go home Atemu." Atreyu urged his fingers running, soft and cool, over Atemu's cheek as he slipped past him.

* * *

Yami woke with his lids fused together from sickly, burning, tears. He croaked, coughing his chest up tightly through his throat, and found his mood sullen when he forced himself up in bed only to bury his face back in his hands moments later to brush at a last few tears.

What a horrible little chapter to add to his narrative, he coughed hoarsely, sniffing through the pounding in his temples. Yami thought that it was silly to be so attached to his characters but nightmares tended to stir up unconscious fears he supposed. Maybe it was his father, who had died when he was too young? Or that girl he'd broken up with years ago? Or something else that the dream had invoked which had stirred such a reaction? Either way he found himself more exhausted than he had been when he'd lain his head down.

He needed to get out of his stuffy apartment after a dream like that. He needed to clear the air somewhere fresh and try his hand at some new ideas in a different direction. Sure to write about it would be emotionally charged but, honestly, he was a little too ashamed in himself to put it to paper. It seemed too personal. He needed something else, some way of veiling these ideas into a different plot, and he needed to unpack whatever was bothering him by cleaning out his system.

People Watching might do the trick and coffee always helped he decided as he tossed aside the notion of breakfast in favour of a shower. Usually Yami might've taken the incentive to drive to the airport, sit at one of their bad plastic tables with his laptop, and spend all day watching furtively but his head ached too badly this morning to hit the road. There was a little place not too far away for artist feet to roam where people spent all day, most of them university students, loading up on delicious calories. They had a cake, Yami pondered it more energetically as he dragged on his shirt, which was so gooey that what was sponge and what was frosting was impossible to discern. It seemed just the place to load up on sugar and that natural endorphin perk: cocoa.

* * *

The sun was warm, glorious really if you were in the right mood and under the right light, but Yami had other positives to interpret as he strolled: he wasn't a university student any more, he had a plucky bank account, he had a popular series in production, he was reasonably attractive and about as healthy as a first year art student (which wasn't saying much but gyms were expensive). He tried to focus on those positives. He tried to think of something really brave, really spur of the moment, he could do today to make today special in order to counteract his nightmare. All ideas he probably wouldn't pursue. He wasn't some brave knight figure like his protagonist. Atemu had been modelled with this moral fibre and indestructible dignity in inexperience that Yami was a little too withering to follow the example of in real life.

The café was actually surprisingly quiet today but it was, Yami reasoned, ten am on a Sunday which stripped all kinds of contenders from the picture at the best of times. It was such a sleepy little place. The staff was just perking up, it was still a little cold outside, and everyone was generally half awake with the exception of one person actually.

In the far corner, under a lovely window framing the back courtyard, was a lovely young man who Yami found very amusing immediately. He had his eyes blissfully closed, lips parted, an earphone bud in one ear. His fingers were pitter-pattering across the table top beside his mug and textbooks like the digits of a composer over a keyboard. After a moment, totally unconscious of his audience, he gave up with the sporadic twitching of his fingers when the pace of the song obviously became too much and wandered into an all-out air-guitar solo.

Yami couldn't help himself. That was the kind of spirit he need today. So, in much the same fashion he'd met American Joey Wheeler, he wandered through the café to tap the slender young man on the shoulder.

The boy started, jumping, and blinked dumbly up at him with the most stunning eyes Yami had seen since he was six years old. They were… no purple, lavender, amethyst and violent were too bland, too overused, for his purpose on this occasion. What did he always use for describing Atreyu's vivid gaze? That's right! Indigo or, Yami's favourite, aubergine. Yes aubergine was perfectly intense for the shade of these bemused eyes.

The young man was a good sport though. He tugged out his ear-bud, laughing and turned the gentlest crimson.

"Sorry," he giggled. "Was I being too loud?"

"No, no," Yami chuckled. "I was just wondering if you were waiting for someone?"

Now this was where things went one of two ways. Either the poor thing would turn very shy and mumble, given how empty the café was, or he would, hopefully, be vivacious and sociable. Really the young man was so petite Yami supposed the first would be their but but even he was surprised occasionally.

"Nope," the stranger quirked merrily to Yami's relief, "pull up a chair!"

"Thank you kind sir," Yami beamed. The sweet, un-accusing, enthusiasm was infectious as he lay down his laptop bag on the table top where the boy swept him some clear space. "My name's Yami by the way."

"Pleasure to meet you," he answered bright and bubbly, the hands in his lap pressed between his knees as his feet flared out. "I'm Yugi."

"What were you listening to?" He inquired in fascination.

"Kansas," Yugi laughed to his continued surprise, "_Carry on My Wayward Son_ always gets my blood pumping."

"Classic," he returned grinning, "all-time favourite?"

"I'm fickle, it changes by the week," the smaller admitted easily. He was brimming with such casual confidence it was quite astounding and he took to Yami's cues to open the conversation up readily. "At the moment Kansas, everything on the 30 Seconds to Mars _This is War_ album, and _FLAG_are my favourites."

"_FLAG?_"

"Fight like a Girl," he elaborated, "it's by this alternative American, really awesome, you?"

"I'm boring," Yami confessed straining his memory, "um… _Samson, Breakeven_ and… _Takeoffs & Landings_ by Ataris." He decided finally tossing up one hand to let it fall back into his lap.

"Oh," Yugi purred cheekily, "sensitive man."

"They're beautiful songs." Yami shrugged.

"They are," the boy conceded before testing him with: "_I Will Follow You into the Dark?_"

"Makes me cry like a little girl," the author sighed back, half chuckling.

"Me too!" Yugi laughed honestly. "I balled my eyes out the first time I heard it but _The Call_ by Regina Spektor always gets me right here." He emphasised running his fingers tightly over his chest.

"Do you play anything?"

"You're kidding?" Yugi scoffed good humouredly, smiling, as he reigned his sarcasm back with a softer expression. "No, I'm just very passionate about good vibes."

"Nothing wrong with that," Yami chuckled. "Mind if I just grab a coffee?"

"No, go right ahead," he encouraged dipping into his pocket for a very specific set of dollars, "mind grabbing me one of the chocolate gelato shakes?"

"Can you watch my stuff?"

"Like a ravenous animal." He swore.

"Then you," Yami decided pushing back his chair playfully, "have a deal."

"Thank you." Yugi chirped.

"So you're a student?" He supposed easily a moment later when he slipped back into the seat beside Yugi with their goods. "What are you studying?"

The slender boy took his drink with a grateful, radiant, smile and nodded briefly as he sipped, hand rolling in a waiting gesture as he swallowed, before continuing. It was absolutely captivating to an exhausted Yami looking for something light hearted to charm him.

"History's my strong suit and English is my passion," was the eventual response. "Add some Anthropology, because it's amazingly interesting, and you've got my one way ticket to unemployment."

"I did a creative writing major a few years ago," Yami sighed to Yugi's appreciative groan, "damned myself I think. Dropped out."

"Published anything since?"

"Yeah actually," he responded proudly, "I'm very lucky people buy it."

"That's great," Yugi grinned, "anything I'd know?"

"They're called the _Trance Series_?" he shrugged half hopeful half embarrassed by whatever Yugi's perceptions might be. "I just put out a new one called _Lapse_."

"_Really?_" The boy coughed round his straw. "Those are really popular! My friends are all over me to read them. They're all over tumblr too. That's amazing! I swear some of them are going to be viciously jealous I got to meet you in person, one missed a con where you were speaking in January, but I can't say I've had the chance to read them myself yet."

"It's always a little embarrassing to cough up as a grown man writing a teenage bestseller." Yami grinned. "What do you like to read?"

"Shakespeare." Yugi answered immediately. "I know that sounds really clichéd and trite but _Mrs Dalloway_makes me want to kill myself. I'm a sucker for bad teenage stuff too actually, my guilty pleasure, along with old romance novels. You know one of my friends, Rebecca, has this theory about mass homoerotic subtext in your series. She's really quite adamant about it."

"Definitely grounds for it," he shrugged, "I skipped round it with a loophole."

"Like Anne Rice?"

"Yeah!" He laughed happily to Yugi's grin. "Just like that actually!"

"So what are they about?" Yugi demanded. "I want to hear it from the horse's mouth."

"Do you write?" Yami diverted momentarily and Yugi, now blushing ever so slightly, nodded into his lap as he drew the straw back into his mouth. "Um, well, they're about guy who astral projects in his sleep to all sorts of supernatural places and gets swept up in this covert war against chaos in modern day Japan. Turns out he's part of a race of ancient order-keepers and he should be a lot more impressive than he is. There's lots of stuff about reincarnation, religion, history, love and bravery. All the big fairy-tale themes make an entrance."

"So fantasy come sci-fi sort of?" Yugi quirked as he listened, quite clearly musing, "interesting, definitely, what's your main character like?"

"One of those heroic underdog types," he answered, really he was beginning to feel increasingly nervous about his content. Apparently attractive, vivacious, creatures had that effect on him. "The latest one's giving me hell at the moment though so tell me about you?"

"Ah…" Yugi turned scarlet with an explanatory flourish of his hand. "I write historical fiction, period dramas, sort-of fantasy. Mainly it's for stress relief. Nothing I'd ever publish. I'd go all Sylvia Plath."

"Ted Hughes was an asshole." Yami consented passionately. "I'm sure your stuff is beautiful."

"It's personal," he shrugged dismissively, "private venting space to go in a deep dark box somewhere safe afterwards. Ignoring all that though how's yours beating you up?"

"Argh," Yami sighed, "working on a new book and I feel like I have nowhere to go. Narrative obviously isn't complete but at the moment I'm writing myself into dead ends. My muse hates me."

"I never really have that problem," Yugi admitted crossing one leg over the problem, "my problem is I make myself too upset or get really pumped and have to go to the gym. Mental energy always seems to end up as physical energy with me."

"Sensitive?" Yami found that very cute after Yugi's initial teasing to the same effect.

"Optimistic," Yugi assured him using his milkshake to point, "very stable. Hate crying."

"Why?" He picked up avidly. "I never understood that. What's wrong with crying? It's healthy."

"It makes me feel weak," Yugi began to Yami's sigh, "no really! Within myself I feel compromised. I know it doesn't help anything. It's like confessing that you've given up and I_ can't_bear to do that. It's a waste of energy and it weakens my control and it's just messy when you're trying to yell at your enemies or it gets in the way when you're trying to help your friends. I'd rather tighten my straps and fix the problem before I cry and then, usually, I don't need to cry anymore."

Yugi was, evidently, very passionate about the issue as he gesticulated. He hinted at past experiences, toughening and weathering events, which always entrapped Yami's imagination in conversation. It was criminal curiosity on his part especially when people took on that deeply vibrant look in their eyes. Yugi, slender, sweet and optimistic, obviously had things that called for that kind of dignity of character Yami was sure was lying under the surface. There was a confidence in him that lacked arrogance, Yugi was aware of his abilities and his weaknesses, yet he was assured in himself without being obnoxious. That took some tempering, like soldiers after seeing battle, it didn't manifest with no reason unless the person was exceptionally lucky.

"Do you have to tighten your straps a lot?" Yami queried, people were social creatures, more often than not they revelled in a chance to come clean about themselves with a willing audience.

"I can deal with it." Yugi smiled gently and Yami waited, in vain, for him to go further.

"Like what?" He eventually surrendered.

"Just stuff," the young man shrugged, "people problems everyone puts up with I guess."

Now that was even more interesting to Yami, who spent a great deal of time watching '_people problems_', because it was in his experience very rare that someone felt no need to chalk up their achievements proudly. Yami was guilty of it, he wasn't a secret sort, and Yugi seemed very forthcoming about his opinions which meant that it was either embarrassing or serious enough to downplay and shuffle aside. Yami doubted, in this smooth confidence, that it was embarrassment. Mafia big hitters didn't talk about their work, soldiers didn't talk about their work if they could help it, and doctors didn't talk about their work. They felt no need or had no desire for the complications of an outside understanding. Usually it seemed to mean that it was tiring work, things that were intense or important, things that were better forgotten when in light conversation.

"You're good at dealing with everyone's disasters?" Yami joked gently.

"If it's not going to be on your tomb stone it's not worth panicking about," Yugi recited, "and as long as no one dies today then it's a good day. Hope for the best and expect the sky to fall if you ask me."

Oh he couldn't stand it. The curiosity was nail biting. Yami had too much of a hard-on for mystery novels and he was too easily frustrated by undecided plots like _The Turn of the Screw_ for this but Yugi smiled again, knowing and cheeky, and Yami gave up pushing. Half the joy of knowing people was unfolding the story, getting in on the secret, being enfolded and trusted. It was the days when long time friend Joey Wheeler told Yami about his blind sister and abusive father that affected him most. Those were matched only by those seemingly perfect afternoons, of unexpected content happiness, that humankind couldn't systematically recreate if they tried.

"So what are you doing here?" Yugi murmured lazily after a lapse of silence.

"Lightening the mood," Yami explained, "I had a bad night and I wanted inspiration."

"Studying for a Research Paper on the French Revolution," the smaller cringed expressively at his papers, tongue jutting out. "Are you feeling any better after your bad night?"

"I am now." He attempted. Yami was a dreadful flirt, that was probably why he couldn't write any romantic chemistry into his work, but you couldn't just let these gorgeous moments pass when they handed you easy puns.

"Me too," Yugi beamed, but the expression was small and soft more in his eyes than on his lips which spread only a little but seemed to lift his whole face. Yami was sure he withered in the glow of it. "How old are you?"

"Argh," Yami groaned, moment ruined. "Jesus, I'd rather not think about it."

"I'm twenty," Yugi replied bravely, "are you more than ten years older than me?"

"No, thank the Lord," he laughed but he was cutting it a little close. "That okay?"

"Till I steal your driver's licence that's great," Yugi winked, Yami loved wit. "Do we get to be friends?"

"Can I take you out to dinner instead?" He asked hopefully.

"I never turn down food." Yugi answered swiping his hand through the air to put a period on the discussion seriously before giggling: "Sounds nice."

"Sounds _fantastic _to me." Yami sighed a little more enthusiastically than he ought which Yugi appeared to take as a good joke on his part thankfully. "Are you doing anything tonight?"

"Unfortunately," he clarified unhappily then without ever sounding hopeful or needy like Yami must've, "but I'm free from then on."

Yami revelled in (but was terribly jealous) that for someone considerably younger Yugi had more romantic swagger about him than the author feared he ever would possess. Every offer didn't invoke a great leap of joy for Yugi like it did for Yami who had difficulty communicating with anyone delightful when he tried to sound likeable or witty.

"Monday night then?" He proposed.

"It's a date," Yugi pursed, "literally."

"_Awesome._"

Yugi laughed at him. Yami didn't care.

* * *

As always I'm very glad to be back and I hope you all enjoyed! Update in two weeks, with more dreadful jokes, so please keep your eyes open.

Have a good night lovelies~


	2. The Complicated Romantic Subplot

AN: Yep, this chapter is ahead of schedule! Please don't get too used to it loves, I'm just getting myself some plus karma for when my updates are more sporadic later (once I've got your all dreadfully hooked)

* * *

CHAPTER 2: _The Complicated Romantic Subplot_

_Atreyu, beautiful Atreyu…_

He couldn't even go there tonight. It was all mingled with his nightmare and Yugi's eyes. Gods, was he such a weak man he wanted to desperately apologise to a fictional character?

_The Seers were just as Atemu remembered them. Sharp, bleeding black-blue, screeching, contorted bodies nearly female nearly spider…_

No, he was worrying too much about the nightmares he might give himself tonight if that continued.

_Jenzar Fraveous was…_

He had no idea. No picture of Jenzar in his head that felt sufficient but he was sure he had to introduce him into the plot somewhere.

Coco wasn't at all amused he'd gone out today and despite his improved mood it hadn't done much for his writing either. He still had a good eighteen months to get the book completed. They'd just about finished release tours for the new one after all. So he had that he consolidated himself.

Doorbell?

Who popped in at ten o'clock at night? Joey Wheeler, his mind supplied, well that was true and sure enough wouldn't you know it:

"I have a date." Yami revelled on the couch.

"_Fabulous!_" Joey Wheeler teased with a drama student wiggle of his hands before breaking into cackles as Yami hit repeatedly him with the nearest magazine sprawled on the side table. "Sorry bro."

"You're deplorable," he dismissed, "how have you been?"

"Trying to get a job." Joey groaned. "Want to include me in your rich will?"

"Not rich," Yami clarified, "just mildly successful."

"Rich_ eventually_ then." Joey clarified back.

"Just more responsible than you." He retorted exasperated. "Why on earth did you do a course with physics and astronomy?"

"I wanna work at NASA." The blonde shrugged dumbly.

"You suck at math."

"Yeah, I'm realizing that," he cringed.

"How are the card tournaments treating you?"

"Pretty good," Joey perked vaguely reminisce of a half-conscious Labrador, "most reliable source of income at the moment sadly."

"That is pretty sad."

"Oi!" Joey snorted. "Few years ago you had four dollars and fifty two cents in your account."

"Would've been lower if the _damn _ATM gave change." He grumbled.

"I'm not starving yet. That's the important thing. I really need a job though."

"Amen," Yami chuckled, "especially when you eat like a pig."

This time Joey was the one wielding the rolled up magazine bouncing against Yami's skull as he cackled.

"You should enter one of the Duelist tournaments," Joey announced, kicking out his legs to slouch so far into the couch he reminded Yami all at once of Stephen Hawkins and a drunken frat boy. Lord if he didn't have back problems by the time he was fifty…

"God no," he snorted, "I've got a gambling problem. Seriously, start me off and I can't stop, I'd be clearing bitches out."

"Yeah but that'd be half the fun!"

"You remember when we were eighteen and you took me to that casino?" Yami recalled inciting an immediate cringe. "Yeah, that wasn't fun, was it?"

"Was for you!" Joey hollered, "You won ten grand!"

"Yeah and you had to wait around for me," Yami recounted, "and I was too distracted to drink or engage in proper conversation."

"Yeah and you got us kicked out."

"House doesn't like it when you win too much." He shrugged. "Really though Joey, better for everyone if I keep my ass out of competitive gambling, or else you'll never see me again! It's not one of my shinning areas of self-control."

Wasn't that the truth? Really, perhaps it was better his Muslim father was long dead and his mother had immigrated. He had a suspicion he'd be something of a disappointment given his two career options were writer and professional gambler. Selling himself was a homosexual prostitute was a close, even more disappointing, third but his mother was much more forgiving about these things. She'd been born and raised in Japan, not Cairo, nonetheless what boy doesn't miss his father?

"So what else is new?" Yami didn't assume there was anything seriously wrong in Joey's life. The American did so much wandering it was more a matter of chance that he tended to show up late at night rather than intentionally or driven from some purpose.

"Well," Joey grunted thoughtfully and there was, surprisingly, some topic he was thinking over Yami could now see. "There's this guy…"

"You beat him up?"

"_No!_" The blonde snapped, elongating the syllables, "why is that your first question?"

"Because it's _you_," Yami shrugged sceptically. "Seems pretty reasonable to ask you is all."

"Well I didn't beat him up!"

"What then?" He sighed exasperatedly, now Joey had a bee in his bonnet, silly creature.

"He's a jackass," Joey began as a qualifier, "I know him on the circuit and he beats my ass to second. He asked me out all of a sudden."

"So?" Yami blinked.

"Well…" Joey floundered, "I…I don't know what to do."

Yami's lung came out through his nose and then he broke into amazed cackled immediately.

"Oh my God!" He cried awed. "Oh my fucking God!"

"_What!_" Joey groaned in a screech. "What's so goddamn funny!"

"Oh my God!" Yami still couldn't stop himself laughing. Sweet mother of Jesus this was priceless. This was going on the memory wall. "You give me so much slack for being queer!"

"Nah I don't!"

"Yes you do!" Yami snorted. "Now you're seriously hot for a guy? You? Joey Wheeler the man among men? This fucking_ rocks_. Karma motherfucker!"

"Shuddup!" Joey ordered magazine in hand again. "Just tell me what the fuck I should do!"

"Alright! Alright!" He chuckled. "He's a jackass right?"

"Yeah."

"Then fuck him." Yami answered to Joey's increasingly bemused face. "Not literally!"

"Yeah but…" Joey mumbled worrying the back of his neck, almost blushing, "he ain't that bad I guess."

"Then date him."

"You just told me not to!"

"It's your love life!"

"Yeah, but," Joey slouched impossibly further into the couch, "you're supposed to make all the hard decisions."

"As of yet I'm not contractually obligated."

"We could make a dare out of it?" He suggested. Trust the American slacker to think that was the solution capable of plucking up his courage.

"Oh no," Yami insisted, "I'm not turning my love life into a romantic comedy. I want it to be like one of those charming artsy flicks with the pixie-esque super-deep love interest. I am not becoming a Zack Effron or Seth Green or whoever the hell acts in those movies cause it totally ruins my fantasy."

"Then what am I supposed to do?"

"I don't know," Yami sighed, "if you want to date him then try it. If he's a jackass make him work for it."

"You think?" He blinked cautiously hands shoved into his slack pockets.

"No I'm lying." He deadpanned tartly. "_Yes_."

"You think you've got a good chance with yours?"

"I honestly don't know." Yami sighed wistfully. "I could really fuck this up being awkward but he's cute."

"Alright," Joey decided in a grumble, slapping his hands against his thigh. "We're gonna do this!"

* * *

Atemu, Yami, phased right into the scenario. No warning, no prior explanation, no distance between him and his starting position rather he'd come _In-Medias-Res_ to the mission.

He found himself in a locked school room, on an upper level over-looking the rolling grassy slopes of the grounds and suburbia beyond, a Supernatural realm that had taken on a physical manifestation much like Earth. Atemu hated phasing into any building that took on the appearance of a school. They were so often halfway places, living mazes that changed by the minute where physics fluctuated. He was already in uniform, the children around hadn't noticed he was any different, because physically he must not have looked it in his disguise but this was no time for a mirror.

"Good you're here." Atreyu gave Atemu some idea of how he must've looked. He was dull, mousey and utterly unlike himself to Atemu but Atreyu's eyes were still brilliantly deep even if no trace of his immense power could be sensed. He was in uniform with the blazer, the boots, but he somehow looked more ready to fight than study. I must've been his stance.

"What's going on?"

"Building a child army," Atreyu answered in a feverishly curt whisper, "we have to get this group out. When the Militants arrive an escape door will open simultaneous in the dimension. It'll be our only chance to get them out of here and take them into the jungle."

"Jungle?" Atemu blanked glancing back over his shoulder to the windows. It was always possible the image of suburbia beyong was an illusion. Nothing in these worlds worked on certain reality. Everything was fluid.

"You'll know it when you see it."

"What if we fail?"

"Then they're destroyed," Atreyu answered simply gesturing to the unawares children in question, "there won't be another chance to send another team in."

"Are there more children in the building?"

"These are the only ones we're saving."

"But-"

"The how and why don't matter," Atreyu ended pointedly smooth, "it's not our job to fix everyone's problems. It's our job to keep balance, order, so things like goodness and wickedness get time to work themselves out_. Focus Atemu_."

"Of course," He conceded to the passion. Atreyu was not an un-loving being, quite the opposite, so if he could distance himself surely so could Atemu. They would still help, he decided, still save a few innocent fragments as he glanced over the children.

Atreyu was quick, efficient, but Atemu knew that there was joy lingering under the very calm surface. It was like the reverse of a shore: smooth, slick, sand over bubbly froth. Atreyu had purpose and intrinsically knew, somehow, from resonating with the very fibre of this dimension and everyone in it exactly what was going on before Atemu could guess from the clues. So Atemu had no choice or inclination to do anything but follow Atreyu's cues. _Faen knows best_both Champion Amar and Watcher Cobalt had joked.

"Get the door, hold them back," he ordered lowly. "I need to find the escape point. I can't until they come in. We've only got a minute or two."

Atreyu was rushed, quick, but not panicked though Atemu considered himself to be so. He had no idea what he was about to encounter. These Militants were part of this realm, this world, not transient entities who lived solely to cause chaos like the Seers but that did not mean they needed to have human-esque shapes or that they would have similar abilities.

'_The physical counts for nothing. Your wits will be what save your life and others.'_ Amar Seirramoura had informed him knowingly once during a training retreat. So Atemu steadied his stance about ten feet back from the door as Atreyu mounted the raised platform which served as the opposing side of the classroom.

"Everyone back up!" Ateyu called stoutly beckoning the other children with both hands. "Up here!"

They mingled, they whispered, but sheepishly they complied to the sudden flourish of authority. They were sacred, untrusting, but they weren't real children, Atemu reminded himself, they were different beings who somehow appreciated that Atreyu could be trusted.

Atreyu just had them up on the platform, Atemu watching over the crook of his shoulder, feeling along the wall just the first inch when Atemu caught the sound of approaching feet and the signal of approaching powers in his senses. It was like radar really. He steeled himself. Atreyu continued to move, smooth but brisk, running his fingers along the wall, half muttering, tracing the resonances in the energies.

"I won't have time to come back for you," Atreyu called briskly as the footsteps pounded closer just as an aside to Atemu, who's heart sunk through the floor of the level, "I'll leave the door open. Follow when you can."

"Right!" Was the only strangled sound he managed to get out before the rim of the doorway lit itself and sprang open.

The Militants looked human at least, somewhere between soldiers and suits, and when Atemu's vision whipped back round to them and eye contact was established there was an automatic understanding between they that Atemu was up to something they would not like. Then they screeched, like howler monkeys really, and it was all the more uncomfortable to watch human faces stretch their jaws like that.

"_DISARM!_" It was instinctive for Atemu now.

The rush of adrenaline compounded into the thrill of action as he let loose a spell. The concept of putting thought into action through energy repeated itself over his conscious. The checklist scrolled through his head: the more complex the word the more complex the counter needed to be effective, the more strength of will focused into it the more effective the spell, the firmer the confidence the more reliable the result. The shouting? Well that wasn't needed but it gave Atemu a rush of certainty in himself that was only doubled when the Militants skidded back into the walls and the door frame as if under assault from a typhoon.

He fell into the pattern, the thrill, of: attack, counter, attack, counter… He found himself cycling familiar favourite words and gestures that proved powerful combos. _Displace, Rebound, Oblivion, Decimate…_ those O and E sounds, the sharp constantans and long syllables that now fell so readily out of him. Thank god Yami had a flourish for the written word to supply him with a large vocabulary which was as good as an armoury here. After all this wasn't about making magic it was about making it take the shape you wanted, commanding your own and that around you.

"_RUPTURE._" Atreyu had apparently found the exit point and, evidently given the sound, blown it open. "Move! Move! _Move!"_

Atemu lost his focus for just that second as Atreyu began shepherding the children. The hand that clamped down on his upper arm burnt. Atemu twisted on reflex, will surging in distaste, and the manifest force of his desires whipped the Militant's hand off him without Atemu having to open his mouth.

"_BACKLASH!_" He raised his hands and thrust in the immediate following seconds to put at least six meters of distance back between he and said Militant as a secondary precaution. Atemu didn't like close combat, physical fighting here, it was fun but it was gloriously messy.

Atemu struggled, he needed to follow Atreyu, but any lowering of his guard to run would bring them after or get him killed. He needed another word to fit his intentions better, a better spell, but you never thought of the best ones under pressure.

"_SUPPRESS!_" How he managed it was mysterious at best but he imbued as much intention as he could and was sure he'd shouted himself hoarse in the process. The Militants crunched in on themselves writhing.

Atemu twisted, ran, he found Atreyu's rupture easily enough but hardly had the time to look back to check if his spell had worked in buying some time. All he could do now was run. You got used to the running, the body was so light here, but the burning of his lungs and the surge of his feet was still vividly real as anxiety drove him on.

Atreyu had made a passage through the back rooms of the space, the school, through storage rooms but the continuity shattered when from one storage room he ran into a raised warehouse like space where the wall was split asunder onto the open world. Through the tear in the steel Yami could see the streets of suburban houses in a valley, sloping up on the other side to a vast mountainous jungle, he didn't bother skidding to a halt instead he jumped, typically, and found himself well footed a storey down on the grass with a thud. God he was sturdy here, his calves didn't even ache.

"_SANCTIFY,_" Atreyu ordered, he was a good ten feet before him in Atemu's line of vision and he raised his flat palm up to where Atemu had leapt from to seal the tear in the wall he had created. "Come on. That'll only buy us so much time."

"Right," Atemu was painfully hoarse, his energy wavering but the pace had set in fully now and he was lost in that funny place between combat mode and euphoria. This was what his soul was built for, this was what he was immortally regardless of the life time or the planet, and so he kicked up his heels and carried the trail behind Atreyu.

They packed the children between them, Atreyu at the front Atemu at the back, and with a wordless kind of experience Atreyu ran them while Atemu herded the back on through the quietest of the back street and out of view. The city itself seemed empty, devoid of life and fake, but the sun moved abnormally fast being unbound by strict time and in what only felt like twenty minutes it had set.

"Trap," Atreyu mumbled, pulling the nearest child closer to his back. He crouched and the children followed like mice in a game along a bright red fence through the darkness of the street.

Atemu brought up closer to him, making their line a cluster, and tried to whisper.

"What now?"

"Through the park," Atreyu ordered, beckoning him up to the front of the pack. The darkness, the ever increasing darkness, had scared the children to glue to them shaking.

The park was a vast, devoid, little square between the streets crisscrossed by another red, aluminium, fence with broad gaps between the bars round the children's play equipment. There was a little light now but only from the moon and Atreyu hushed them repeatedly. They pressed into the fence, Atreyu grasped his forearm, held Atemu still and they waited. Nothing, crickets, chirping, Atreyu shuffled them again another ten or so feet.

_Click._

They froze. Atreyu's hand behind his back, fingers spread on Atemu's chest, keeping the Reaper held off from progress. The children were too frightened to breathe and through the large gaps in the fence Atemu found himself struggling to make out detail in the inky black void settled to almost mist thick consistency about them.

_Click, clop._

He twitched in the direction of the sound on the other side of the bars. It wasn't metallic or gun like, more like hooves, and straining eventually his eyes adjusted securely enough to make out the rustling figment under the yellow painted slide.

"Antelope?" Well that was its shape. Really it could've been anything. Still there was nothing untoward about its vibe. Atemu eased, snorting, leaning more into Atreyu's back as he whispered. "Let's move on."

"No." Atreyu countered sharply, voice so soft and wispy Atemu half mistook it for the breeze that rolled over them and rustled the full trees. Atemu pushed his way closer, making Atreyu lower his arm, his chin on the other's shoulder and the petite finely formed Faen held one tiny finger aloft into another corner of the darkness.

Beyond the slide, further back, under the jungle gym Atemu could barely make something out. He'd missed it a moment ago. It was hunched, roundish, like an abandoned school bag. Or at least it was until the Antelope thumped its leg carelessly and the creature- jaguar? Cheetah? No something similar but sharper- bolted from under the structure and lunged at it. It screeched too, high but grunting, and had enough strength to snap the animal's neck and carry it off into the obscure left field in one superfast gesture that flowed beautifully.

Atemu's heart lurched but Atreyu's shoulders fell.

"Now we move," he complied and scampered off ahead on light feet. Atemu dismissed his shell shock to make himself follow but fell into the back again to insure they didn't lose any little feet in the dark.

Under Atreyu's lead they somehow kept their footing down the next alley on the opposite side of the park. A moment they were on a gravel driveway falling steeply down and the children picked up speed in front of Atemu with a newfound relief, certainty, and glancing up Atemu could obscure the sheer wall stretching up to the sky, moonless, must've been the mountains. He need not have looked up because another ten or so meters and they were between the trees. They towered tightly around them, the cement was suddenly pungent undergrowth, and a million little senses and sounds came towering around Atemu with an immensity that was living.

"Will you be alright from here?" Atreyu muttered gently turning back to the children who pressed tightly to each other.

"_Yes thank you_." They droned it, together, with one bizarre voice that reminded Atemu of auto tuning. Their eyes were reflective as they spoke, gathered all the light, like cats but that effect, that reveal, faded as they ceased to silence.

The floor left Atemu's gut in bemusement. He was never beyond amazement these days. Atreyu nodded, kindly, hand brushing over the scalp of the child who had kept closes to him and which must've been the heart or mind of whatever creature was masquerading as children. That had to be it. Something pretending to be something else was not unheard of in the Natural world. Just like a stick bug this entity had impersonated a gaggle of little ones. Atemu was breathless at the humour and bizarre thrill it provided in realization.

Atreyu glided to stand beside him, still undercover in his blazer and mousy hair unwilling to let the disguise melt of just yet, and they waited another moment or so as the children darted off out of sight into the jungle amongst an endless cacophony of strange sounds.

"Will it be safe out there?" Atemu whispered.

"Oh yes," Atreyu promised him, "much safer."

"You knew."

"Of course, I felt how chained together it was, limbs of one big entity. You would see if to if you had your memories." He murmured arms folding as though he felt the cold of the air but that was more a human instinct than a necessary practicality here.

"That's why they were the only ones we saved," Atemu concluded, "because _It_wasn't really children."

"It would've complicated the ecosystem if not."

"Was that a hard Hunt?" he found himself snorting as his tendons relaxed.

"Did it feel like it?"

"My nerves are shot."

"No, it wasn't," Atreyu revealed softly. "Goodnight."

That was all he got. A little raise of Atreyu's hand, a delicate brush of his fingers on Atemu's arm, and then he phased, faded, out entirely leaving Atemu abandoned in the thriving jungle. He'd felt something, Atemu knew, he'd felt some proud camaraderie running alongside Atreyu which the Faen had now entirely brushed off with the curt gesture. Atreyu was still upset with him and that guilt, that fear of what might come, fell back over Atemu as if he was exhaling for the first occasion that evening. They understood, roughly, how to work together true but Atemu was still insufficient, clumsy, and Atreyu was still wounded by his anger towards him.

Atreyu had sworn, in his kind way, that he would forgive Atemu but the Reaper was beginning to consider how long was a '_short while'_ to a Fean whose memory stretched back to the dawn of time? Atreyu may not forgive him til the slate was wiped clean and they were reincarnated into new lifetimes.

Atreyu might not forgive him for a thousand years…

* * *

Monday was God's little joke. A blight on humanity conceived as an eternal punishment for original sin. Even if Yami didn't have a nine-to-five job Monday had expectations. Monday wanted him to achieve things. Monday made him feel generally bad for himself. Monday made him get up early, shower cold, sit in his office chair and rue why he was psychologically guilt tripping himself every night. Had Yami killed a puppy on some drunken bender he didn't remember?

"Mother fucker," Yami groaned because somehow it helped, just to force out a swear word. It was satisfying. Arm thrown over the back of his desk chair, legs straight under the desk, neck slack, head back to stare at the ceiling through his sunglasses because _living_ was too bright for him at the moment Yami couldn't fathom the _concept_ of motivation let alone the practice.

"Argh," he made the sound long, grunting, like a dying animal because that helped too.

Why did it always seem like his house was full of dirty dishes and unfolded laundry on Monday morning? The sink had looked reasonably empty last night and the pile of clothes hadn't bothered him then but now Monday was judging him.

He might have to face up to the fact he had squat but an angry subconscious. That was fine, brainstorming was fine, he still had eighteen months but really nightly self-crucifixion seemed like something he should get checked out. It was a little scary Freudian.

_Now_ Yami was buzzing. He hadn't gone out to dinner for months. The street was busy for the hour, frigid too actually, and he'd been approached once, awkwardly, by a waitress asking if he needed something. Funny looking men standing outside a restaurant was off-putting for patrons perhaps and he would've taken that as his cue to clear off but he'd pay her back for it later when he footed the bill for a meal inside. He huffed, shuffling on his feet, it was burningly cold on his nose out here but anticipation was probably responsible for the majority of the uneasy shakes.

He was glad telepaths didn't exist, for many reasons, the main being that if Yugi could read his mind he probably would've sounded creepy but frankly, at the moment, Yami was hooked on anything with remedial powers on his mood. Yugi was an upper, a distraction, in spirit and body that he might get addicted to if his dreams persisted in this vein much longer. Might not be a bad thing but Yami wasn't traditionally this enthused about dating. Still if Yugi had been a younger woman he would've felt positively diabolical for being so dire to see him again.

"Hey," Yugi made him start with a patter of his fingers against Yami's shoulder that made the author start, lurch, and then spin.

"Hey!" Yami croaked, his voice was unnaturally hoarse, he put it down to an impending cold which was a thought swept right out the window when he got a good look as sleek little Yugi._ "What happened to you?_"

He had no voice to cry out but his horror was evident to everyone at the outside tables (crazy lot they were. Who ate out, literally speaking, in this weather? Madness!).

"Hmm?" Yugi twigged, fingers rising curiously to the bloody split of his lip as if Yami's notice of it had just revealed it to him. "Oh this? It's nothing."

"Nothing?" He repeated bemusedly. "It looks dreadful! Are you alright?"

"I'm fine." Yugi beamed but cringed with a little sound as the motion spread the cut and softened his expression. "Seriously, happens all the time. I'm a walking accident. I don't even know how I managed it."

"If you're sure…"

"Positive," he dismissed casually, grasping the elder's elbow in his hand to thread his arm through Yami's. "Let's eat. I'm starving!"

"Me too," Yami relapsed; it was so easy_ not_to argue with him it was astounding. Especially when Yugi so casually brought himself close.

There were a lot of reasons Yami preferred dating members of the same gender, some of which Yugi showcased, but generally because in many ways it was easier than dating a woman. Call him a slacker but he had a better understanding of the problems of his male partners, a better appreciation of what mystified them, and because of the beauty of culture most young men shared around about the same standards. Neither of them for example was going to get their period and become a temporary bitch, neither of them thought of porn as cheating Yami would guess, and neither of them was afraid to have a big meal and look like a pig. Fuck diets. Now this wasn't to say women weren't marvellous creatures, they were, but Yami liked the ease of same sex relations.

To demonstrate in this case: Yugi picked a table, flicked through the menu appreciatively, and ordered exactly what he wanted, expecting to fork out half happily, and probably had every intention of eating it with his fingers. Yami loved it. It gave him license to act less like the perfect gentleman himself. If he had to guess he would suspect that, as men knew from personal experience that they themselves could never completely be a woman's _'Prince Charming'_ they never expected their cohorts to be either. Amazing, an absolutely amazing bonus of being homosexual, thank God for the Romans!

"Aw _fuck yeah_," Yugi purred, feet slipping out from under him beneath the table top as he took a hardy bite of pizza. "This place is great."

"They have desserts." Yami grinned.

"No way," Yugi perked eyes scanning for the glass display housing the cakes and ice creams, "oh sweet Mary mother of God in Heaven… Okay," he concluded decisively, "well this is the end for my self-restraint, been nice knowing you."

"Busy day?" Yami chuckled over his own meal.

"As much as ever," he shrugged, "you?"

"Got nothing done," Yami sighed, "what do you do?"

"Study, work, perpetuate an overwhelming social life and fix people's problems." He laughed. "I work from home online."

"Ah, so you're a Nigerian Prince then?"

"I wish!" Yugi snorted. "I do data entry: entering results, maintaining records, really boring stuff."

"Yet you still manage to get into brawls." Yami joked with a gesture to the split lip which still mildly horrified him.

"I didn't get into a brawl." He assured him again with a sigh. "I'm okay, really, but let me guess; you stay home trying to write all day?"

"_Trying _being the key word here," the elder groaned, "I don't even want to think about it right now. What about your writing? Anything new and exciting occupying your time?"

"Muslim slave trade pre 1500s," Yugi answered merrily, pizza disappearing at an alarming rate. Where did he hide all those calories?

"Didn't the Brits steal the slaves from Africa?" Yami frowned.

"Not_ really_," Yugi teetered, "post 1500s the Brits, Portuguese, French and Dutch were sold slaves by the_ Africans,_ which they traded, but they were more interested in sugar to begin with. Pre 1500 though the Africans, who were complicit for the _entirety_of the slave trading golden years, sold slaves to the Muslims in Spain for centuries. Mostly the Muslims used them as concubines and domestic servants, they were status symbols, but they also got slaves from Eastern Europe as well mostly Russian kids."

"Wow." He muttered softly. "You learn something new every day."

"That probably made me sound _deliriously_ racist," Yugi reconsidered. "But the African nations _were _totally complicit! I mean, they had different terms and conditions on slavery in their countries and the Muslims didn't make it a permanent lifelong thing either, but they still sold to the Europeans for centuries even when half their people thought the white men wanted to fatten them up and eat them."

"No! No!" Yami laughed. "You don't sound terrible, it's just…wow…" he gesticulated. "I have nothing to contribute. I feel kinda dumb. I sit around with my disapproving cat all day."

"But you do research right?" Yugi supposed. "For your books?"

"Oh yeah, loads," he retorted, "but I have such a narrow window of understanding comparatively."

"I'm an _idiot_." Yugi announced in response. "I just happen to be a vast wasteland of useless trivia information as a result. I swear if I lived in one of those _American Treasure_ or _DaVinci Code_style movies where being an expert on generic trivia info or something stupidly obscure and irrelevant makes you a superhero I would have my own religion."

"All I've learnt this past two years is about religion and evolution," Yami cringed as he chuckled, "makes every conversation into a debate."

"How come?"

"I tried to consolidate both as part of world logic for my books. The _why_ and _how _stuff happens is based on science and religion's bastard baby."

"So logical next question: what do you believe?" Yugi asked curiously. "Honestly, outside the books, what do you think?"

"Well…" he teetered cautiously. He wasn't one to stir up a meaning-of-life argument over the first date. "I don't know. That's a bit deep for so early in the night."

"Oh come on," the smaller snorted bravely, "don't be a pussy. Own it. I don't care what you believe, really, as far as I'm concerned we've got two options: the first is that I think everyone's technically right and the second is that nobody's right, there's nothing more to this existence, and if that's the case then as far as I'm concerned people can live however makes them happy. I don't want convert you and I don't mind if you think I'm totally bonkers or not. So go," he encouraged, "I'm not going to bite. I am the safest person _alive _to have this conversation with."

"It's not that I don't have belief," Yami ambled mumbling, "I just…I don't think everyone should be bound to explain themselves or take a stand on it or… I don't know."

"I'm not asking you to have the answers or to defend your opinion to me." Yugi elaborated gently lowering his meal and leaning in closer. "I just want to know what you think. I want your opinion. I want to know you _have _opinions. I want to know you've got the balls to voice them."

"You…" he laughed, Yugi lifted him while terrifying him by demanding something people avoided so politely so brazenly. Yami was used to playing nice and skirting the issue, he was fairly sure most people were, but Yugi was apparently so settled in facing it that he had no interest in running away from it. "You're very passionate about this."

Yami wasn't quite sure what he wanted to say.

"Maybe," the smaller shrugged, "but I mean it: I'm not asking you to defend what you feel. I'm just always interested by what people think their purpose is. How people put meaning into their lives and their world. I don't want to have to prove what I feel and I don't want to make you. I don't think you should be afraid to be honest though. We're going to come to it eventually."

"I think…" Yami sighed. "I do think there's more. I think there's purpose, something after, someone outside us, things that aren't explainable but I don't know what that is or who that is yet."

"That's a completely legitimate answer," Yugi assured soothingly and at once Yami felt he could breathe again, "see? Was that really so hard?"

"It's just not something I'm asked to discuss a lot. Not seriously." Yami found himself mumbling weakly because he did, indeed, feel weak. "It's important to you though?"

"Yes and no," the smaller confessed. "I know what I feel. I don't mind if someone else believes something different but I want to be with the man who is brave enough to stand up for what he holds sacred, whatever he thinks is goodness, whatever it is."

"You must think I'm a coward," Yami supposed, and it was a suddenly devastating idea to him. He liked Yugi and he, without really knowing him, valued his opinion. Yugi didn't seem flippant about praises.

"No," the smaller sighed sweetly, barely smiling. "I just think I freaked you out. I'm sorry."

Yugi was so soft in his voice, permissive and gentle, but the soul flowing into the emphasis was intensely passionate. There was a force there that, for the first time, Yami found intimidating in the slender, petite, thing that was Yugi. He was a much younger man, gentle and very polite so Yami shouldn't have found him any inch off putting but for that moment as Yugi sighed, gazing off, deeply entrenched in thought evidently intimate to his sense of self Yami found him unfathomably vast and unknowable. Little Yugi was an ocean with all its strangeness, all it's moods and all its unknown entities to discover. Yami had a sense that he might never, ever, know every inch inside Yugi and that reaching the bottom of the other might crush him before he found it just like a diver trying to find the floor.

He reminded Yami…

Yes. He reminded Yami entirely of Atreyu but not in any way that Yugi seemed conscious off or calculating about. He didn't think for a second that Yugi was some mad stalking fan playing him, oh no it was too genuine, but he had this frightful feeling that if Atreyu had ever lived or breathed real air he would've been Yugi. That in itself was terrifying especially when they overlapped, so acutely identical, in Yami's imagination.

The entire scene, sitting in the restaurant, suddenly felt like a surreal out of body experience. Yami had stumbled onto his living character.

"I haven't totally put you off me have I?" Yugi mumbled weakly that intense power retracting to make him very small.

"No," Yami swore to his own surprise, "I think, if anything, you…"

Yami knew what he wanted to say but it would scare Yugi off, vice-versa, if he admitted that it made him irresistible.

"I like you even more for it." He settled on lamely but Yugi took it with that perfect grace of a smile Yami would've intrinsically expected of Atreyu. Gods, suddenly everything about Yugi seemed more revealed and devastatingly beautiful. Yami had the vague awareness he was falling too much too fast but Yugi was so perfectly _there_ he couldn't stop it. Right time, right place, right details all condensed.

"Dessert?" Yugi croaked half laughing at his own suggestion and Yami chuckled.

"Let's do it."

Somehow they fell back into more mundane, more diluted, forms of conversation that gave him a fuller picture of Yugi without making them face each other so directly again. Yami found himself taking about movies, comics, Yugi had a wicked sense of humour but then he fell into saying:

"I just can't take it seriously," he laughed, "they're not vampires they're fairies: all cute and sparkly and angelic."

"Oh no," Yugi clarified appalled, "Fairies are tougher than the Cullens. Fairies are not kiddy creatures. In old mythology-" (once again Yami was sure he was about to marvel at some obscure tid-bit only Yugi seemed to have the mind to store) "-fairies come from '_beyond the Veil_' but over the course of human history their realm gets more and more restricted. In early mythology they rip apart whole countries for fun, in later mythology their realm is dying so they're driven to secrecy and steal humans to help them propagate because they're dying. Our stories of them, over time, form this whole logical narrative."

"Fairies are evil?" Yami balked. "You're killing my childhood here!"

"No!" Yugi laughed. "They're not evil but they're _dark_. Sure they create illusions of light, they shine, they're radiant but they're much darker in how knowing they are, how powerful they are, their motives, their calculation. Besides that they're darker in the sense they draw power from the night, from the moon, from the elemental, unknowing, they're foreign and alien. They don't draw strength from or live in some world of sunshine and endless daytime."

"I'm still not following you," Yami wavered, "I get what you're saying but I'm still not getting how this makes them _not_evil."

"Evil and Good are like a line," Yugi elaborated helpfully, "you have Good at one end and Evil at the other right? And there's gradients in between those two ends. Light and Dark are just like that, a separate scale, so Light doesn't automatically equal Good and Dark doesn't automatically equal Evil. We just tend to write them off as synonymous. Fairies, or Fae or Fays, are _Dark_ but they're _Good_ creatures mostly. They're not out for anything dreadful in the stories they just want to survive, revel in endless fun and romance, they love Love for the most part."

"You know I totally have to reconsider one of my characters now," he sighed easily, "I'm just going to call you from now on any time I have a question about mythology. Do you have a favourite? Creature or myth I mean?"

"Um…" Yugi groaned tossing one leg over the other as the tip of his fork worried the chocolate on the plate. "There are so many… the fact King Arthur is supposed to come back, the Book of Ezekiel story about the three boys who raise from the fire, the mermaid queen of France, Zeus as the Swan, Gods… Um…I don't know really." He surrendered with a pleased snort.

"Okay, then how about your favourite fictional character of all time?" Yami teased. At this point he was just content to listen to Yugi talk, watch his mind fly off in tangents, watch him fail to ever tell Yami anything really intimate.

"Dean Winchester, if I don't overthink it," Yugi replied immediately, "he's not perfect but he pulls himself together to get shit done and I respect that. You?"

"Mister Darcy." He cringed.

"_Wha?_" Yugi cackled throwing his cutlery down.

"He's just such a good guy, even when everyone treats him like an asshole, and he's so socially awkward." Yami laughed. "I think the ugly duckling part of me relates and the rest of me wants to be that much of a heartthrob."

"That is not what I expected you to say."

"Somehow Dean Winchester is _exactly_ what I expected you to say." Yami grinned.

Yugi drew both his elbows onto the table, laughing, with his face buried in his palms as he pulled himself back together.

"You're so cute," Yami admitted, "_so _damn cute."

"Shut up," Yugi snorted, "you're freakin' adorable."

"It's a good thing!" He swore. "I want to drag you onto my couch and watch old movies with you and _cuddle_. I haven't wanted to cuddle since I was sixteen!"

Oh now Yugi laughed but Yami couldn't quite tell if he was embarrassed for him or because of him. Either way it wasn't exactly cruel disapproval but Yami certainly felt dorkier, more naïve, than Yugi.

"You're a spaz." He rued cheekily. "Am I your first boyfriend or something?"

"Nope," Yami grunted, "you're not my tenth either."

Cue the wolf whistle that brought them a little unwanted staring which turned Yami pink and didn't faze Yugi, confident little spite, at all.

* * *

1. Joey's American, yes, if he wasn't it would make no sense for me to use his English dub name where everyone else had their Japanese names. As for the story itself think of it like the dub: it's not in America, or Britain (as my mind keeps thinking it is) but it's never really specifically called Japan (even though it is).

2. This definitely isn't the last time Yami/Atemu will go hunting! Hunts give you clues~

3. Keep an eye on Yugi's references in the chapters they give you little clues about him too. Especially in regards to what he likes.

4. You can check up all the myths and history details too. In this chapter they should all be accurate references to real stories (just let me know if you can't find something). I'm sure_ 2Teennovelist_ knows exactly what I mean too when I say fairies are dark.

5. The restaurant they're eating at is modelled off this lovely Italian place I live down the street from

6. I just want to clarify a point on Yami's little ramble about why he prefers being a homosexual. I'm not trying to _'bash_' (Lord I hate that word) female characters or heterosexual ships or anything of the sort, promise, but I'm a lesbian and when my lover (of_ many_ years) and I go out I think those sort of things. So it felt right to apply it to Yami because when I think about my sexuality I think about some of the advantages of being gay even though it doesn't matter to be one hair either way.

Always love to know what you think, always happy to get favs or alters or anything of the sort and please don't be shy to drop me a line! Have a lovely week guys.


	3. Where Coincidence and Fate Intersect

Enjoy ladies!

* * *

CHAPTER 3: _Where Coincidence and Fate Intersect_

"So have I terrified you away from ever wanting to see me again?" Yugi queried as they leant into the frame of Yami's front door.

"I've had more fun tonight, with you, than I've had in _yonks_." He swore. "I don't even want you to go home."

"Well as wonderful as that is," he grinned, "unfortunately I have to go home. My bed's there."

"I've got one."

"Nope, sorry Casanova," Yugi retorted, "I don't roll into bed on the first date."

"Wouldn't ask you too, I just still want to cuddle you silly," Yami confessed and given Yugi's satisfied, cheeky, grin he must've sounded incredibly dorky.

"Still not happening," the smaller clarified, hands behind his back and utterly serene. Given his nature Yami would've liked to find Yugi a little frazzled, to make him blush, but that was evidently a statistical impossibility well outside Yami's power. Hopefully that would change someday.

"Can I get a kiss instead then?"

"Nope," Yugi answered immediately with just as much flippancy, "I don't kiss on the first date either. Besides you might give me an infection." He warned with a little gesture to his lower lip.

"No even a peck?" Yami rued.

"Not even." He replied brow twitching up. "What's the rush anyway? You think I'm going to run off to Cuba? I'm sure they don't extradite but…"

"No," Yami mulled, "I just really like you. I really want you around."

"Well I like you to." Yugi reassured smoothly without ever colouring.

"See, that's just it!" He sighed, shoulder against the door, gesturing over Yugi. "I have trouble reading you at all. You're so chilled. I can't tell if you're really into me or not. I know I'm into you and I think you can tell right away but I can't read you."

"Hey," the smaller scoffed, grasping Yami's collar gently in one set of lovely fingers and dragging him in close till Yami prayed they were about to kiss. "If I _didn't_ like you you'd know. Trust me. I don't mess around. So relax because if you come on too heavy you might scare me off."

"I don't think an army could scare you off." He chuckled. At any other moment he would've taken Yugi's grip as an invitation to sweep his arms around him like a bad Disney movie but somehow Yami sensed Yugi wouldn't appreciate that unless it was explicitly on his terms so he resisted.

"Doubt it." Yugi conceded in agreement and for a second, Yami suspected or hoped, Yugi would relent to peck him on the cheek just teasingly but he was denied even that small mercy. Instead Yugi eased his grip on Yami's collar, hand sliding down his clavicle and falling from his body back to the slender hip of its owner. "Have a good night."

"We're going to do this again?" Yami questioned in his best attempt to seem casual.

"Pinkie swear," Yugi laughed hopping down the stairs of his front porch, "call me."

"Look after that lip." He called after him and, untouchable, Yugi swivelled flashing Yami one of those amazingly genteel sparkling smiles that must've been stolen right from Atreyu and played in his eyes before turning on his way with his hands confidently thrust in his pocket.

Yami sighed into the wood work of the door, turning his face into it, his heart didn't seem to know if should swell or shrink in elation or fear. He wanted Yugi back beside him already. This curiosity, the bubble of happiness Yugi magically formed, was going to be the death of him. He wanted to know what it was like to be given permission to do _anything_ with the little creature because, truly, he was learning that nothing happened to Yugi without his permission. Nothing touched Yugi, nothing infected him, and he was his own source of light rather than chasing after others. Yugi was totally self-sufficient, totally mystifying when it struck him to be so, totally un-needing and _dazzling_ for it.

Then there was the other thing, the biggest detail from tonight, Yugi was in every way an embodiment of the ethereal Atreyu. Yami it seemed had underestimated his preference for the character. Atreyu had always been a main character in his novels but never central, never totally necessary, and Yami had never really thought he had much of a deep attachment to the fiction. It must've been his dreams which gave Atreyu life and will all his own outside of Yami's conscious control. Atreyu was an idol character, something to aspire to but never touch, a beacon or a lovely aside that once brought into the primary focus of the text must surely lose some of his charm when the mystery was taken away. He was starting to reconsider that. Maybe Atreyu did have enough substance to maintain a more explored, developed, role in his next book?

Lord how did he even end up on this tangent? Why did it matter that Yugi reminded him so much of Atreyu? Sure there that fondness but in the grand scheme of a relationship in the real world it was irrelevant. Besides he didn't want Yugi insulted by the notion that Yami wanted him to live out some ridiculous fantasy he himself didn't understand. Atreyu had never, not once, in the novels been a love interest so now it seemed peculiar. Then again Yami, truly, had no concept of what would or would not insult Yugi. He didn't have many hard concepts of Yugi's likes or dislikes in general.

Yami turned himself more fully into the door, forehead resting across the wood, hands in his pockets and groaned. He was falling hard, _stupendously_ hard at that. He hadn't longed for someone this bad since he was sixteen and learning love. It had been Anzu and they'd both failed to live up to each other's expectations miserably. He may not have ever been some heartthrob like Darcy but Yami was typically more sceptical, more reserved, more restrained and slow moving. Partners tended to rush him and not the reverse. He tended want that slow romantic waddle through life and he was usually competently smooth in delivering it. Yugi made him want to run and he barely knew the kid.

It was true, he barely knew him, he'd only met him three days ago and since then seen him once for a few hours. Enchanted time or not that was hardly anything to throw your pants off about and celebrate over. Had it just been too long since the last boyfriend? Was he getting old and clucky? Was Yugi his type or was he just fascinating and soothing? He beat his head against the door once, groaning for good measures, and decided he needed to pack it up for the night and clear his cottoned head.

Now that wasn't fair, he realized, Yugi was supposed to be his distraction from the wicked dreams and now Yami was looking for something to distracting himself from daydreaming about Yugi. Unfathomable cruelty the world knew no boundaries.

How Shakespeare…

* * *

"Sounds like he's not that into you," Joey decided as he helped himself to Yami's yoghurt, "sounds kinda cold too."

"He's not," he tried to explain haplessly, "he's painfully sweet. He's just…maybe he's just out of my league?"

"Well you're a dork," Joey added supportively, "and he's what? Super confident?"

"Thanks Jou," Yami scoffed, "really digging ya support here."

"Well he hasn't called you, right?"

"Hasn't been that long, two days," Yami shrugged. Two totally dreamless days as well for that matter and after no Atreyu or Yugi he was exhibiting a minor case of cabin fever. "I don't know. Let's ignore my love life and check in with yours. How's the asshole?"

"He's…" Joey struggled, exhaling breathlessly, "he's… weird?"

"Into kinky shit eh?" Yami teased.

"No!" The blonde snorted. "It just wasn't like I expected. It was kind of like hanging out with you for a night. It wasn't like a date with a girl."

"Of course it wasn't."

"Yeah but like…" Joey flailed exasperatedly for some sufficient explanation. "We hung out at his place, which hell might as well have been a restaurant, and we fought like scorpions and it was sorta fun but I figured that was it and then he asked if I wanted to go out again."

"Someone's a Bipolar-Bear." Yami whistled in sing-song as he threw his feet up on the coffee table. "Least Yugi's not that weird."

"Yugi's pretty fucking weird."

"True," he would concede "but not _that_ weird."

"Eh." Joey mumbled in surrender to the issue.

"So did you have fun?"

"I think." He answered cautiously leaning into his knees as his hand worried the back of his neck. "I wanted to punch him once or twice but I can dig that."

"And he obviously had fun or he's a masochist." Yami felt it safe to assume. "Was it too weird that he was a guy?"

"Nah," Joey teetered loosely, "I mean it was strange but it wasn't like we were anywhere where people were staring or anything."

"You get a kiss?" He teased but it very quickly turned sour.

"Yeah," the American mumbled.

"_Fucker!_" Yami groaned burying his face in his knees. "Damn it."

"Heh," Joey smirked, "you're whipped and cock blocked Bro."

"You're a fairy Bro." He snapped back but really there wasn't much point hazing on Joey for his bad luck. "What was the kiss like?"

"Not used to being the bitch," he shrugged as his introduction to the issue, "but it was actually pretty hot. He's mildly terrifying but like-"

"_Mildly terrifying?_" Yami soaked that up.

"-Shut up," he retorted, "but like it was when he was the least pretentious."

"Sounds like a Heathcliff if you ask me." He replied comprehensively.

"The fuck's a heath cliff?"

"Lit reference, never mind," Yami chuckled. "What did you _do_in school?"

"Oh yeah!" Joey pepped snapping his fingers. "He said he knew you by the way!"

"Me?" He baulked. "What's his name?"

"Seto Kaiba."

"No," Yami shook his head mildly, he'd definitely heard of him but: "never met him."

"He was absolutely convinced you knew each other." The blonde insisted crossing his legs up on the couch.

"What he say?"

"Something like: _that prat's always talking shit about me_," Joey recited loosely, "not in those exact words but he said you should cast him as _'less of a dick_' in your next book basically."

"He thinks one of my characters is based off him?" Yam frowned mystified. "What a weirdo. I have seriously never met him."

"Weird." The blonde quirked and neither of them bothered to take the matter further.

* * *

Yami wasn't a frequenter of the New Age market by any means. He wasn't Pagan, or Neo-Pagan, or Neo-Wiccan, or Modern Church of Satan, Indigo Child or any of those perplexing minorities that seemed three helpings hippie and another two confounding to him. Still they provided an interesting alternative perspective he'd summoned up once or twice in the first _Trance_ novel and he found it helpful sometimes to reattach himself to those places and re-explore the vein. With no word from Yugi and currently gathering his courage to spark the conversation himself he had nothing better to do but research new plot options.

Besides, wandering through the punk rock record stores and the alternative jewellery parlous in town wasn't expensive by any means but it did force him to exercise. He found himself in a book store a street back from the main shopping district later on Wednesday afternoon that way and, to his surprise, serendipity decided if Yami was too anxious to come to Yugi it would throw the pair of them together like a poorly constructed plot device.

"You can't be serious." Yugi was chattering rather animatedly to the shop keeper. He was pristinely clean, as ever, but between the stack of books in one arm and the over-stuffed backpack he sounded haggard. "You're supposed to sell supplies."

"Well we don't have what you're looking for Sir." The girl chirped irritably across the glass counter.

"What supply store," the young man floundered in exasperation, gesticulating, "doesn't stock _iron_ and _rock salt?_ You're kidding me."

"I'm not." She deadpanned nastily. Apparently this had been going on for several moments.

"Yugi?" He called cautiously. "Is everything alright?"

"Huh?" He pivoted jerkily. "Yami! Hi!" he twigged bemusedly and twisted back to the store clerk. "Never mind then, thank you."

Pushing off the counter, Yugi lugged the books closer to his chest and forced himself to smile as he took Yami's elbow and led them from the store. He had them on the side walk before he sighed, moaned really, and ran his hand over his face.

"Are you okay?" Yami queried, offering his arms. "Here, let me take a few of those."

"Thanks," Yugi mumbled relenting the heavy stack of books to the other's care to run both hands over his face, "sorry. I'm not the best right now."

"You look dreadful." He conferred likewise. The split lip was mostly healed but the bags under Yugi's eyes were criminal and the scattering of band aids, bandages and bruises both perplexed and frightened him. "What happened?"

"I got knocked over by some stupid high schoolers." The smaller dismissed tiredly. "I fell on the cement. I've had a bad few days aside," he laughed thinly, "I'm not myself right now. How are you?"

"I'm fine," Yami answered, rolling his shoulders to shuffle the weight of the books. How did the boy carry all these? "I've been thinking about you but I was too embarrassed to call. Thought I'd let you take it at your pace."

"I was going to call," Yugi promised sympathetically as though apologising for failing to meet some obligation he had considered important, "I just lost track of time."

"No," Yami insisted, "don't worry. You want to sit down somewhere? I can get us lunch. You look like you need it."

"That'd be great." The boy chuckled though the sound was thin and he appeared close to failing at reigning in his veiled hysterics. "I'm starving."

"You tell me that a lot."

"I think I have a tapeworm." Yugi joked.

Yami did his best to veer them in the direction of a more hospitable location. He knew there was a café round the corner but they were only half way to it when Yugi grunted at the bench and begged his pardon to pause momentarily.

"Oh _god_," he heaved, throwing off the back pack to let it slump on the steel frame rolling his shoulders trying to work the kinks out of his neck. As he leant down and came back up Yami got a better look at today's accessories.

"Those are very nice." He supposed lamely gesturing to the bangle and the necklace.

"I made it in year ten art." Yugi demonstrated raising his wrist to flash the oddly glyphic bangle before twisting the pendent in his fingers. "This one's a pentacle, silver and iron, moonstone centre. A friend gave it to me. I don't usually wear them together. They tend to make me look a bit clichéd."

"They're beautiful." Yami assured him consolingly. "So it's been a bad week you mentioned?"

"Long story," the smaller groaned, "ancient history. I-"

His phone wailed in his pocket and he glanced apologetically back to Yami.

"-I'm sorry," he was apologising a lot today, "I have to take this. Do you mind?"

"No, go right ahead," Yami encouraged though Yugi needed little of it.

"Hello?" He sighed somewhere between relief and exhaustion. "Yeah… no they didn't have any either…I tried there already. Listen," he groaned gently, "it'll be fine. When you drop the kit off I'll just-" He paused. "What? In the hospital? How'd Bakura manage that this time?"

Yami frowned. What was worse was despite this, despite the rather grim expression on Yugi's thoughtful features, he didn't sound dreadfully surprised at this turn of events. In fact it was as if people dropped in and out of hospitals every day in Yugi's opinion like they were coffee houses.

"Crap," Yugi sighed eventually, pinching the bridge of his nose between his index and forefinger as he leant into one particularly strong leg kicking up the heel of the other. "He'll be alright. Knowing him it could've been worse. Drop the kit off at my place and I'll go with you to the hospital… already? But then how am I- Ryou I can't. I _don't _have a car!"

A note akin to distress began to creep into Yugi's syllables as his body stiffened.

"No, I understand, but Ryou-" His caller once more cut him off and Yugi tone wavered into panic when he finally cut back through the din on the other end. "-Ryou I need that equipment or I can't go home tonight! Bail? Well then Bakura's definitely not leaving the hospital till you get there! He's broke! Ryou, please, I really need you to come through with me on this…"

Another tenuous moment and Yugi's face contorted between amazement and disgust that Yami was sure border lined deeper rage.

"Fine," he hissed in surrender throwing his hand up, swallowing thickly as only Yami could see. Yugi's eyes were shining. It was bizarre, frightening, to picture him crying but what followed next was a picture of self-control. "Fine, don't worry about it then… Yeah, I am…I'm pissed because Bakura's not the only one who's got it hard. No, seriously Ryou, let's not even start. It's not worth it. I'm too tired. Just text me and let me know you're alright… Yeah, okay… no don't apologise right now. Tell me later… Of course I love you. You're family. I'm just not in the best mood, can you blame me? Alright, bye, love you."

Yugi's fingers curled as he snapped the phone shut in his fist, pressing the heels of his palms into his temples as he hunched over in a sound that, had his teeth not been so tightly shut, Yami was sure would've been a scream. Then he threw his hands down, head back, sniffing and his fingers seemed unsure what to do because they were over his face again ad he looked like he was about to cry.

"Oh Yugi," Yami breathed, he couldn't help himself. He reached for him but, rather sharply, the other pushed him back.

Yugi then appeared to realise what he'd done and blinked, eyes hot, up at Yami so apologetically it was almost heart breaking.

"I'm sorry," he whispered appealing, "I'm having a really bad day right now."

"It's okay." He swore still rather desperate to take the stubborn creature into his arms and comfort him.

Yet Yugi was persistent, batting at himself despite Yami's arguing, that he perfectly alright and he _wasn't_ crying.

"Yugi," Yami breathed uncomfortably, "you're not involved with anything untoward are you? You're not in trouble?"

"No," the smaller answered shaking his head laxly, "nothing like that. That was a friend of mine. His boyfriend's a dick. Ryou's always cleaning up his messes and I get dropped every time something like this comes up. It's just annoying today. It… it sounds _so stupid_ but I'm having a really hard time feeling safe in my apartment right now and I have this box of stuff I use to calm down when I'm being irrational. I leant it to Ryou and now Bakura's gotten into a fight. It's not pills or anything like that."

"You are going to be the death of me." Yami chuckled as his suspicions finally allowed him to exhale. "Let me hug you? Then we can figure this out together. I've got nothing better to do today. I'll help you look for replacements."

"No I'm fine," Yugi persisted, "I don't want to bother you. It's my problem."

The very idea of making the older man, of asking anyone, to help Yugi in picking up his messes was evidently quite a deplorable and shameful concept to the boy. There was some suggestion there, that Yami found himself discovering intuitively, that Yugi couldn't imagine damaging others collaterally where it could be avoided. The word '_shield_' flew to the forefront of Yami's mind and Yugi immediately struck him as that sort of person. Yami knew, in that naturally instinctive way, that Yugi was the kind of young man to bear everything on his own shoulders rather than trouble others, the sort who shielded people from his personal hardships, so he could assist them in theirs without forcing the sense of reciprocity upon them. Yugi seemed perfectly the sort to see his disasters as something to protect his loved ones from, something to face alone, something he ought to handle himself.

"I'm not going anywhere," Yami repeated stubbornly to his own surprise, he found something depressing in the notion that Yugi considered his problems bothersome. "You might as well let me help. You can pay me back next time. I've got nothing else to do anyway."

"I'm going to be dreadful company today," he promised a little coolly but not at all unkindly, "and I truly appreciate it but I don't expect anything."

"Don't care," Yami shrugged, "I want to spend time with you. It's sad, I know, but I've got no life."

"So you are a glutton for punishment." Yugi decided oddly, like they'd had some discussion of if previously though Yami couldn't for the life of him recall it. Either way he smiled, pulled together once more, and sincere as ever when he relented finally. "Okay."

"You owe me a hug." He teased gently too winded from his victory to be exuberant.

"Later," the smaller redirected, "I need a little while to calm down."

"Okay," Yami was learning to settle for whatever inch Yugi would forfeit.

* * *

Yugi had this perpetual sense of purpose that strengthened visibly with every step. Yami had never been one for the remedial power of a coffee himself but the steady sips the other aptly forced himself to take appeared to be plied to some ritual in their exhibition. They didn't speak but Yami had plenty to narrate because Yugi, in the most curious way, silently put his wavering self all back together again over the course of the cup. His eyes settled on the window but appeared focused well beyond that and he evidently found something to console himself with after another sip.

Yami could've spoken, there was plenty of idle chit-chat he had stored away for these occasions, but it would've been grossly inappropriate when, voyeuristic as he was, he got to be privy to his metamorphosis. Yugi went through his bag, sent a very carefully worded text Yami assumed to this unlikable Ryou, put the little phone away and stripped himself of every bit of jewellery on his person from head to toe in the most disgusted and systematic way imaginable. When he had them all in a pile, the star, the bracelet, the earrings… he swept them inside the backpack and put them to rest with supreme finality.

The act of clearing himself off helped, reinvigorated, and was to Yami almost symbolically cleansing. Yugi evidently agreed because the next course of action he deemed appropriate was to strip his wounds of their coverings which Yami had to protest.

"You'll get an infection," his inner mother hen sobbed, hand outstretched.

"They're scrapes," Yugi cast off, "I'm just hiding behind bandages and they're making me feel weak."

"They're keeping your wounds clean."

"I'd rather be well in mind than in body." He retorted coolly bundling up the refuse of the medical rejects. "Call me crazy but I'm strictly for making matter reflect the mind."

"Well, that's all very good," Yami supposed, "but are you sure?"

"Positive." Yugi affirmed strongly. "I'm going to call an old friend of mine, cash a favour, and I'm going to have a whooping great dinner tonight, in my own home, when all this nonsense is done. I'll be damned if some nightmare is going to put my life in shambles. Fuck Freud."

Yugi may have been the only person Yami knew who could quite literally wage war on the subconscious. Maybe there was something to be learnt here?

"You really have that much trouble sleeping?"

"Don't you?" Yugi scoffed playfully but there was an element of knowing to it that perhaps Yami just inferred all on his own.

"No, not sleeping," Yami replied, "my subconscious just tends to beat me up."

"I love it when I'm asleep," he clarified, "I just hate falling asleep lately."

"That has got to be one of the strangest contradictions I've ever heard." He teased. "What keeps you up?"

"Freud and Vermin."

"Is that literally or metaphorically?"

"That's my secret." Yugi teased back weakly. "Now just give me a sec, I'm going to call in that favour."

Joey was right, oddly enough, Yugi _was_ weird and Yami was beginning to think the little creature would edge Kaiba out of the top spot for that reason without knowing it. It was mildly off putting but more than that it was concerning. He could find legitimate reasons why Yugi would want to be private after such a brief relation but there was the distinct impression that there were much bigger things going on here than Yugi was portraying. Yami didn't like that twice now he'd found the boy distressed or injured and now involved intimately in the bizarre.

Then it got a whole lot weirder when Yugi pressed the phone to his ear.

"Hey, Kaiba?" He greeted mildly. "Yeah it's me, am I the ghost of Christmas past or what? Don't you know it… working on that… why do you always assume I want something? Maybe I just wanted your miraculous company? Okay, true, remember Mokuba 07? I'm cashing my pay check."

Yami frowned, it rather difficult not to tilt his head likewise, Yugi knew Kaiba?

"The usual suspects: rock salt, iron, a shit load of silver and whatever extras you can spare. Yeah well the economy's bad and I've got a serious rat problem these days since the printing press was invented…" Yugi snorted jokingly. It was an inside pun of some sort Yami didn't appreciate. "I cleared your whole fucking house last time. All six floors. If Mokuba had been over ten I would've _charged_for my services… well getting off your ass for once is good for you. Yeah. Can you drop it off this afternoon? Oh you're a champion, my hero, give Mokie a thousand years of love from me. Okay, bye sour puss!"

The clamshell shut and Yugi fell back in the chair alleviated and delighted with his lot in the world.

"_Yes_," he purred, "problem solved."

"You know Seto Kaiba?" Yami collapsed into asking and the young man blinked with unnecessary scepticism in response.

"Yeah," Yugi responded cautiously, "do _you?_"

Yami had the impression his answer would be dissected very carefully.

"We've never met but my friend's dating him."

_"Your_friend?" Yugi reeled with a kind of moderately restrained amusement. "Small world! Your friends with the infamous Joey Wheeler?"

"You've met?"

"No but I make it my business to know when a Hitler reincarnation like Kaiba's interested in someone," he grinned, "as far as I'm concerned he hasn't been in love since the Bronze Age so I have been getting all the goss I can on Mister Joey Wheeler."

"You don't say?" Yami chuckled yet something here unnerved him. "You know, it's funny, a couple of days ago Joey said that Kaiba was convinced he and I had met. You think maybe he got us confused?"

"Your friend knows you write the _Trance_ books right?" Yugi prodded.

"Of course."

"Then there is no way Kaiba got us confused," he laughed, "Kaiba's almost a fan of your work which for him is pretty damn impressive."

"You sure?" He balked.

"Oh yeah," he insisted, "he and Ryou both read your books. Besides, Kaiba knows everyone I know, freakin stalker, you just wait till Joey Wheeler mentions _we're_ dating. He'll have a hernia."

"We are dating though aren't we?" Yami felt himself desperate to check.

"Definitely," Yugi settled for the record, "stop worrying so much."

"Why would Kaiba care we're dating though?" He pressed. He was still struggling to find any moment he'd ever made contact with the man while pushing through the surreal realization that Yugi's world enfolded Kaiba's.

"Well because he has an opinion on everything, first off," the young man joked, "then because he reads your stuff and then because…"

"What?"

"Nah, it's ridiculous," he suppressed, "never mind. I've sounded enough like a freak for one day."

"No, come on," Yami chuckled thinly, "you've got to tell me now you've alluded to it. It's not fair if you don't."

"Well…" Yugi coloured, which Yami found disarming in itself, and struggled for the appropriate phrasing: "I've had a strict _no dating_policy for a while now."

"How long?" He blinked. Somehow that made sense given how closed and distanced Yugi seemed from intimacy at intervals. It was part of that untouchable Atreyu quality to him.

"Um," Yugi laughed, "since I was thirteen so…seven years?"

"_Whoa_." He exhaled sharply. That was commitment. It frazzled him. "Why? And why_ me now?_"

"Long, complicated, private, stay-up-all-night-sobbing story," was his answer. Yugi spread out his hands in a silencing motion. "Really cannot bring myself to go into it today but I do like you. Like I keep telling you, even though you don't believe me-"

"I believe you I just don't get _why_." Yami laughed breathlessly.

"-and it's…I might as well. You know?" Yugi shrugged. "The stars aligned, the omens are right, and you're a really sweet guy considering how you dragged me out of my pit today."

"I didn't do anything." He rasped honestly. "I did _nothing_today. You dragged yourself up. I swear to God Yugi you…sometimes it scares me how little you seem to need people, or me, or anything. I envy that strength of character."

"Psh," Yugi dismissed, "I need people. I love people. I get desperately lonely without people to love and protect and be with. I'm just good at damage control. You did help though. You snapped me out of it. Made me shut up and pull myself together for a minute."

"Yeah but you did all the pulling together."

"Yeah but Yami," he became very serious as he pressed his hands between his knees and leant forward, "I don't let a lot of people see me when I'm down. You can take it. You ought to give your likeability more credit."

"I think you think you're more difficult to deal with then you actually are." He challenged. "I mean, you mystify me, but you're very self-sufficient, dignified and…_radiant_. Really, I don't feel like I'm ever going to get to do the whole _ride-in-on-a-white-horse_ boyfriend thing to save the day with you."

"I like saving the day too much myself," Yugi confessed, "I'm a hero-hog. Just trust me though: I like you, I'm always as honest as I can be and when I'm ready to spill the beans you will get everything you want explained and then some."

"Okay," he sighed soothed, "but you _are_ going to stop being so mysterious some day?"

"I'm not mysterious." He defended good humouredly. "I just have a lot of baggage that is not appropriate first date fodder."

"I can take that."

"That's why I like you." He smiled. An Atreyu smile at that, the kind of smile Yami was sure parted seas when struck by the urge to do so, the kind of smile that wielded power and found him entrapped as a resulting aftershock.

For a split second time could've diverged. Yami saw two possible options that hinged on his next sentence: revel in the pleasure of being wanted by Yugi without question or ask, like he desperately wanted to and was yet terrified to, if maybe his dreams were as real as they claimed to be. Was Atreyu real? Were the dreams astral projections? Was he really some fantastical hero who had betrayed the millennium old code of secrecy of the Reapers? Was it all true in a way Yami had always neglected to let himself consider? He'd written off that possibility, that they were real, as day dreaming and escapism in wanting his life to be more meaningful or exciting. Sure the dreams always presented logical explanations for how they interacted with the real world but dreams often seemed reasonable at the time…

It couldn't be real, logic dictated, but Yugi seemed to walk the line between the reality and fiction that Yami was starting to lose faith in. Everything seemed so aligned. If the dreams were real than Yugi was Atreyu and, if he had to guess, Seto Kaiba would be the Atlantean Watcher Cobalt who Atemu (Yami?) was so unfriendly with.

That would mean though…

If Yugi was Atreyu, if Yami pretended the impossible was possible for a moment, then did he know? Because he would certainly know Yami was Atemu if it was true but then why would Atreyu, if Yugi was Atreyu, date Yami? Atreyu belonged mind, body and soul to Jenzar Fraveous the Reaper Champion Yami couldn't hold a candle to. He would never stray like this, so playfully, given what Yami had always known about the Atreyu character. His love for his partner, Jenzar Fraveous, was immortally set in stone and as simply undeniable as gravity.

Was that why Yami didn't want to divulge? Not because he was afraid that every nightmare he'd ever had was real, that there was a big picture to face up to with demons included, but because if his books, his dreams, were in-fact real astral projections then Yugi Mouto/Atreyu Damestaire was either playing him or could never really be his?

No. Atreyu Damestaire would never play someone. He was too kind for games like that, too benevolent, in Yami's experience. So unless there was something he was missing Atreyu, if he was real, would only attempt a romance with him through Yugi (his reincarnation and conscious real world self) if Yugi didn't know, when awake, that he was Atreyu. Just like Yami hadn't ever thought Atemu Pheramora was his immortal self?

He sounded bonkers, absolutely bonkers, this was ridiculous and deluded. He needed to kill the parasitic thought. His imagination was running off with him…

"You still in there Dr Robinson?" Yugi teased.

"Huh?" He blinked. "Yeah, sorry, just having a little happy spasm."

"Well get ready for an epileptic fit because I owe you a hug."

"I get to cash it now do I?" Yami chuckled but his mind was still rampant with delirium as Yugi grinned.

"You better because I should probably go wait for Kaiba." He elaborated pushing his chair back from the table. "You want to go somewhere this weekend too?"

"Like where?" He answered dragging himself up.

"Botanic Gardens?" Yugi suggested. "I love em."

"Never been, sounds fun," he allowed because as he gathered up his wallet he still couldn't totally detach himself from the inane idea. Yami felt distant, lodged in his head with whatever brain tumour he must've had but he made himself come back to the moment to enjoy this.

Yugi was taking pity on his languid brain though when he hooked his arms round Yami's neck and squeezed him close. Yami fumbled, he wanted to hold Yugi but he couldn't fathom how. Part of him instantaneously jumped to the thought of embracing Atreyu who was too delicate, too pristine, for scruffy Atemu to imagine breaking with his foolish hands. Yami tried, arms round Yuig's taunt waist but it still felt fake, insubstantial, inferior and when they fell apart he could tell neither of them were satisfied.

Yugi didn't meet his eyes, he was looking somewhere more internal than external, his head titled down, frowning, and something uncomfortable seemed to play across his face as he played with some idea out of Yami's range of perception. In his own mind Yami was sure he'd failed to achieve a standard. Surely Champion's like Jenzar Fraveous had knowing hands to embrace fairy deities like Faens, like Atreyu, like Yugi.

Suddenly, like he was ruffling something off, Yugi came back to him again and there was a surge, something real, as the slender young man threw his arms round Yami's torso and clutched between his shoulders. Yugi's hands over his shoulder blades, his face buried in Yami's chest, Yami felt for perhaps the first time that what was hiding against him was the actual Yugi who he'd half spied through a veil till now.

He almost fell back in the rush of joy that ran through his bursting chest because Yugi felt real. He could practically hear the hum of real energy inside Yugi's taunt body and afraid it might vanish he clutched him back with intensity, a strength, which frightened him. Yugi didn't care, evidently, even if Yami was rather perplexed by himself. Instead Yugi nuzzled his clavicle, as if he was stubbornly trying to bury himself into Yami and hide.

Yami's chin found the top of his head, chin cradled by Yugi's skull, and half rocked them as they stood. Everything seemed very intimate at once in the coffee shop, which in itself had all but vanished away, especially as Yugi's fingers ran fumbling over his shoulder blades and between. He half wondered if the slender boy was looking for him to have wings, or some other secret, but then he caught, realized, that Yugi was more desperately tracing a familiar shape in the bone structure that must've somehow comforted him.

Yugi seemed small then, for an instant, he almost felt scared, lonely, and needy to Yami's arms. Yet by the same token Yugi felt tangible, honest, to him then and Yami had never thought he was more beautiful than now when Yugi allowed him to see this morsel. Yugi's face twisted to the side under his chin and the small creature squeezed him vice like. Yugi appeared to half want Yami to never let go and yet he obviously realized he _should_ go.

Yami wasn't going to be the one to end this, not by any power under the sun, if he had a choice. He didn't however because, as always, Yugi had all the choices and in the next second was very quickly untangling himself from Yami as if he were embarrassed or ashamed.

"I better go," he whispered, that bubble of air back between them.

"Okay," Yami allowed gently, he shouldn't be ungrateful for what Yugi had just consented to show him of himself. "Take care alright?"

"I will," Yugi promised. "Thanks for today."

It was only then as Yami very carefully handed Yugi back his books he bothered to really take in the covers:_ LaVey, Crowley, Gardiner, Demon Possession, Myths of the BCE, The Exorcist's Basic Principles_…. All that dread of his concern started creeping back as Yugi vanished round the corner of the cold grey street.

* * *

1. If you've ever read "Weathering Heights" you'll know Mr Darcy and Heathcliff are both heart throbs and yet utterly juxtaposed opposite. Gentleman vs. Asshole. Reserved vs. Insane. Still, Heathcliff enchants a lot of young ladies.

2. LaVey wrote "The Satanic Bible" (and a lot of other brilliant books), you should've all heard of Alister Crowley (who again wrote a mammoth of a book), Gardiner wrote a lot of what is considered traditional Neo-Paganism and the rest are entirely fictional. I do however have work by all three of them I've scrolled through so they are relevant in their special ways.

3. Let the theories on Yugi abound!

4. Let the theories on Yami's dreams abound!

5. Actual smut next time~

See you next time lovelies!


	4. The Truth About Pandora?

Hey beautifuls! We're now officially half way through Act 1 with this update! Act 2 starts in Chapter 8 so keep your eyes out~ Sorry though. Unfortunately, I was wrong, the cutesy stuff is _next_ chapter. Sincere apologies!

* * *

Chapter 4: _The Truth About Pandora?_

Atemu hadn't been on a hunt for days. So when Yami fell asleep Wednesday night and found himself Atemu once again it was both relief and curse for his over-cooked noodle.

Atemu phased in to something of a basement. It reminded him of Yami's old university, the one he'd dropped out from, with long pale hallways. There was something of a screening room, like a lecture theatre, to one side where beings who looked human were meeting for a club of sorts. To the other side a bathroom door in pale skin pink which a young man darted out of instantaneously to Atemu's arrival to the scene.

Atemu only got half a look at him before he spoke in sharp whispers:

"Come in," Atreyu ordered, back to the bathroom door while only being half out of it, beckoning him to follow inside.

It was a women's room and Atreyu, in a fluster, ignored Atemu's puzzlement to shove them into a stall. He climbed up the porcelain seat of the toilet, boots amazingly quiet in their clinking, and gestured briskly for Atemu to lock the door. Atemu knew he wasn't moving quickly enough for Atreyu's tastes when the Faen grasped his coat by the scuff and dragged him up onto the toilet after him. It was a tight fit the pair of them standing on the seat but Atreyu had miraculous balance that came with the expressed power of the magic in his body great for a centre of gravity.

It was at times like this where, if Atemu didn't know any better, he would've thought they were on the Natural side of the Veil rather than in the Supernatural realms in some pocket dimension. He asked himself too if all of Atreyu's hunts were this to the point. Did the Gate Keeper give Atreyu some preliminary explanation or did the Faen truly need nothing but the energy flow of a dimension to tell him all its troubles?

"What's going on?"

"Don't make a sound. We've got three seconds," Atreyu whispered feverishly, "just watch."

Atemu pressed his lips together in compliance and waited as, just as promised, three heartbeats later a girl and boy rushed into the bathroom and took refuge in the stall beside them. They were blissfully unaware of Atreyu and Atemu watching them as the boy fumbled, panicked, with a rifle between his inexperienced fingers. Atemu's heart began racing, adrenaline returned, but it was the thrill of danger that intoxicated him rather than the terror of fear. He had no context for what was happening as the bathroom door pounded open several more times children rushing inside and squashing themselves in stalls.

After two or three long, tense, minutes the stall to their right had two girls in it, one how was sobbing and another who was frightfully ordering her to be silent, while the stall to their left had the armed boy quaking with the shot gun and his female companion. At least three of the other stalls were filled, the remaining empty four with their doors half open, but as they were across the room in an opposing row Atemu had only glimpsed who had entered them in a flight.

Atreyu had stretched his arms till his fingers were touching the opposing walls of their stalls and, his chest pressed into Atemu's back as the Reaper crouched to try and maintain his view without his head peaking too obviously over the top of their stall, Atreyu took deeply steadied breaths. He was casting a spell, wordlessly, Atemu could be sure but to what end he wasn't entirely clear. To protect them?

The door of the women's room was thrown open uproariously as Atemu considered it and flapped shut, rattling in its frame, as the newest occupant to their sanctuary stood outside the stalls. Atemu raised his crouch slightly to catch a glimpse of the harshly panting girl standing there. Her mouth was hanging open grossly, face ruined by a disgusting progression of slices, and she rocked under the force of her own inhalations as she smiled through cracked teeth. She rocked him with the general repulsion of her appearance but that counted for nothing here. As unsightly as she was this girl might have no power at all that he should be concerned of but still there was no way to tell. Power here could be in anything, appearance meant little, but the other children hidden began to shake in the opposing stalls and behind him Atreyu stiffened.

Atreyu's stance gave Atemu more fear than any remaining factor he might make note of. Atreyu knew what was dangerous so Atemu held himself tighter, suddenly weary of falling, and watched as he'd been instructed.

To their right the crying girl, who the other was attempting to stifle, let out a terrified wail despite herself and the horror-faced young woman outside contorted her destroyed visage immediately in that direction like a dog on a scent. She lunged then, beating at the door with her bruised fists, roaring, while the two terrified young girls inside began to cry and panic in unison. Atemu wanted to help but darned not move without Atreyu's permission.

The destroyed, monstrous, young woman was unnaturally strong for her size because her poundings at the door began to splinter the wood, forcing it in, to the terror of the girls within. The door gave way in the next throw of her fists, groaning like a ship's hull, and in a frenzy the disgusting woman rushed into the stall to fall upon the trapped girls in a grizzly mashing of teeth.

Atemu's stomach turned in disgust, spine tensing, but as the distorted woman ripped the girls apart, alive and screaming, all at once they vanished.

The room rippled, like reality was contorting, and then settled.

Atemu's head twitched, birdlike, to find the stalls on either side of them empty and undamaged.

Atreyu pushed at his back. Forcing him off the seat and dragged them hurriedly out of the bathroom and round the far bend of the hallway. Atemu found himself forced to crouch beside a set of lockers and watch as the armed boy and girl from before darted into the bathroom they had just vacated.

"_What?_" He reeled terribly. "What on Earth?"

"The time stream's been damaged," Atreyu explained in a soft whisper by his shoulder, "it's looping through this sequence of events endlessly."

"Is there a tear in the Veil?" Was Atemu's most immediate question because, surely, only something as extreme as a fully formed rip between the Natural and Supernatural boundary could cause something so stupendous.

"I can't find one." The Faen asserted and if there was one Atreyu would've found it. "I've been here for at least fifty loops in the time stream. Every time it jumps it's putting pressure on the Veil. If we don't stop the time loop it's going to form a tear."

"But how on Earth is it happening?"

"Something has to be causing it." He replied and Atemu immediately noticed the horrible disfigured girl charging into the women's room for the second time. "No, it's not her, I already checked."

"What could cause something like that?" Atemu mumbled uselessly. "That's incredible magic."

"You can't imagine anything?" Atreyu appeared surprised at his admission.

"No," he confessed stupidly, though there were in-fact several entities perhaps capable of such a thing.

Time was one of the few fixtures of the Universe that was stable on both sides of the Veil. Yes time was often slower or irrelevant on the Supernatural side of the boundary but you couldn't simply go back in time. There was a linear, unchangeable, sequence of events. Once something was done it was done.

The only entities Atemu knew who may be able to manipulate time were intensely powerful. The Gate Keeper or some other Supervisor, that is to say some other God, perhaps could but none of them _would_. They used time to keep order and work towards some end goal because after all everything on either side of the Veil was orchestrated using time and dependent upon Fate. Without time there was no consequence, no Fate, no way to act out cycles. Time had been the first fixture of order in the universe.

Forces, spirits, like those governing the wind or the sea in the Natural world certainly wouldn't have power on this pocket dimension on the Supernatural side of the Veil either.

Atemu pressed his mind carefully because Atreyu, diligently watching the progress of the bathroom drama loop for the third time, had teased at an expectation that Atemu should be able to come to the conclusion of some culprit on his own. It was not an unreasonable quiz but Atemu was aware that they needed to work quickly through his lesson or else Atreyu would have to mend a tear in the Veil. Still Atemu did not want to fail this, Atreyu's faith in his ability to come to his own answer, of all things.

This was, he considered, only a small dimension and only this few moments was being looped. That was still powerful magic but it was contained. It would probably only last until a tear was made in the Veil. Atemu knew that, if he really wanted to, Atreyu would be capable of something like this but once more, like the Gate Keeper, Atreyu would never use his magic for this purpose. Atreyu was an embodiment of order. He kept these systems running and these rules functioning.

Then, Atemu realized, perhaps Atreyu's opposition was a logical conclusion? The Seers were embodiments, pieces, of chaos just as Atreyu was of universal order. The Seers were nasty creations who only possessed tangible forms on this side of the Veil and there were legions of them who together were quite powerful. The Seers lived to damage the Veil, the damage the Faens and Reapers and Champion Reapers who protected it, to cause disruption and devastation. As a fledgling Atemu had rarely been sent to deal with them directly himself but these were Atreyu's hunts he was escorting. It was perfectly reasonable, in fact completely inevitable, that the Gate Keeper would send Atreyu to attend something so dire.

"Seers?" He voiced sharply to Atreyu the adrenaline in his gut now twisting in a more significantly immediate sense of fear.

"Of course." Atreyu sighed, patient as ever, but served him a smile for his correct answer. "We had to find them. There will be a few of them. They must be somewhere nearby and we'll have to expose them."

"I…" Atemu was a Reaper. He should be brave.

"I'm here." Atreyu soothed dropping to his knees beside Atemu's crouched body, cupping his face in his perfect, cool, hands. Even with his true face hidden behind another costume to keep them undercover his eyes were still as disarmingly true. "I won't lose to vermin."

"I know you won't." Atemu asserted. "I just…" He inhaled sharply. He was panicking. The last time he'd faced a Seer alone had been a traumatising accident. The last time he'd faced many it had been with an army of Reapers beside him, a Champion and two Faens.

"Don't be afraid." The Faen murmured softly, fingers working over his cheekbones delicately till really Atreyu's touch might've barely been there at all. "You can defeat them. You're a Specialist, a Champion of some description, even if you can't unlock all your power yet. Remember that."

"I'll try."

"Good," Atreyu stood smoothly, "we don't have much time."

From soft vision of hope, like the Angel to Joan, Atreyu was then quick footed and nearly militaristic. Atemu had seen this transformation before on the battle field. Atreyu was truly amazing in real combat but the whiplash effect of the older, more aware, Reapers and Faens was never lost on him being so young himself. He was sure they felt their soft emotions and their blank emotions more passionately than Atemu himself but they had felt them so many times that moving between them was no longer a process for the elders. At least that was his outside intelligence of it.

"If they're anywhere," Atreyu whispered strictly, "they'll be near the source of the disturbance, in this case the time loop. The majority of it is condensed in this hallway and that bathroom."

"How do we expose them?" Atemu followed as Atreyu lead them down the line of lockers away from the bathroom.

"We need to throw a challenge into their loop." He answered. "We've got to disrupt the spell."

"How?"

"Watch," he ordered kindly, as they came round a second corner and Atemu realized they were now at the opposing end of the original hallway where the women's room in question was located. "Three…two…"

The girl and the boy with the shot gun emerged from thin air it seemed, trapped in the time loop, and scampered wildly into the bathroom. Atemu exhaled in amazement.

"The time loop starts here." Atreyu explained beside him as they moved into clear view. The two girls emerged from the ether two or three feet before them and without glancing back ran to the women's room themselves.

"Then…" The thought came together in his mind slowly and Atreyu's benevolent smile widened proudly as he clasped both his hands before himself and waited. "Should I…?"

"You stop her," Atreyu nodded, "but don't stray too far from me and unless I tell you too don't take off your disguise. This is about to get deadly. It's not the gentlest way to break a complex spell."

"Understood," anxious nerve and fatal excitement condensed in him, as Atemu spread his hands before himself and inhaled deeply waiting for the disgusting girl to manifest.

"Three…" the Faen whispered helpfully for his inexperienced companion. "Two…"

"_REPEL!_" Atemu cried both palms flat before him.

The disgusting girl was swept off her feet, rolled, tossed like a ragdoll down past the lecture room of club members. Coughing teeth she gave a spitting roar and rounded in Atemu's direction instinctively.

"_ENTRAP!_" He called trying to rattle the spell further.

The girl sagged, hissing blood, stuck in her awkwardly contorted motion of running unable to shift a muscle. Atreyu began to tighten beside Atemu into a combat pose, his legs parting to steady his weight between his feet, one palm raised with delicate fingers before him as all around them the walls of the facility started to rumble. Atemu tried to keep his eyes focused on the disgusting girl, keeping her secure, as the air around her began to solidify and crackle into fragments.

He might have never been able to explain why the entities which inhabited these pocket dimensions on the Supernatural side of the Veil only sometimes seemed to have magic they were conscious of or why they only sometimes seemed to recognise Reapers but he could explain what was happening now. The spell constructed in this part of the pocket dimension was breaking as Atreyu had planned and sure enough widening gaps were forming before them to a dark subspace that had not been exposed until now.

Now Atemu's excitement truly declined as that familiar sensation of frigid, tingling, cold infused the atmosphere.

The air was crackling, electric, in a very literal sense and Atreyu's hair whipped back from his cheeks as Atemu glanced to him for reassurance. The dark void widened and slowly the writhing creatures forced their way into the mundane hallways scape that didn't suit them.

Seers hid in many forms and came in many shapes but these were fairly common manifestations. Their long, spider like, contortions of human legs saw them as tall as Atemu walking on their hands and feet. They were pale, translucent, creatures blue veined, white haired, with wide gaping mouths and dark featureless eyes. Atemu's spine rippled. His first instinct was to attack, he was a Reaper, these were his natural enemies and competitors for the top of the food chain but with Atreyu beside him he was afraid.

"_Intruders!_" one hissed stupidly, head flailing, eyes blank, but using a much too human voice. Atemu was sure it had been stolen from an attractive young woman. "_Ruiners!_"

The second of the Seers, the gangly beasts, sniffed the air like a stoic witch turning into the wind and turned her sharp face towards Atreyu with noticeable focus.

"_I know your smell Star_," it rasped purring over the words, "_I know your nature Star, I know your name __**Faen.**__"  
_  
"Well," Atreyu eased, "if we're all friends here."

His glamor washed from him, silver water off a duck's back, revealing the sparkling form which matched those stunning eyes. His hair fell round his cheek bones which were peppered with what were either tears or diamonds. His costume fell tangibly to strip away down to the white perfection of the straps of flowing linen which only half hid his skin. Atreyu Damestaire revealed himself in all his glory and the Seers, as was their nature, turned away as if disgustingly appalled, offended, by such a sight.

Atemu could not think of anything more perfect as Atreyu's Needle, his primary weapon, flittered into being between his hands once more a delicate and almost glowing sword.

"_You've brought a nice boy_," the same Seer appraised tauntingly of Atemu tilting it's had farther than an owl till it's limp crone's hair hung in clumps scraping the floor, "_but where's your man?"_

Atreyu's fingers tightened visibly round the scabbard of his Needle, beautiful eyes tightening, and rather than a spell Atemu had the great pleasure of watching Atreyu lunge at them with his blade. The Seer's scattered back like beetles on the linoleum of the hallway, Atreyu's blade sending thick purplish pus over the walls spraying from his initial strike on the translucent skin of the sneering Seer.

Atreyu drew the blade back, close to his hip, clutched between his fingers and released it with one hand to spread his arm before him as if inviting the Seers to dance.

He was mad.

The Seers roared. It was a sound Yami often fooled himself into hearing late at night when he was uneasy. That guttural moaning that transformed from a woman's scream into the airy roar of a predator. Atreyu didn't flinch but then he had heard it millions of times. The nearest two bore down on the Faen, to Atemu's horror, but he had no time to respond in kind as the third, finding itself with nothing to do, rounded on Atemu and bounded towards him.

Atemu pivoted to fly well before he thought to fight and he was almost round the next corner before he forced himself to skid to a halt, his Reaper's pride bubbling, and wage a battle rather than a retreat.

"_OBLITERATE!_" Destructive spells were part of a strong offensive, Atemu was well versed, but as Amar Seirramoura the Champion had educated him you didn't want to go throwing them around liberally.

The more you used a word the less power it contracted, summoned, within your mind through connotative ideas. You could decrease the power of great spells by being too heavy handed and damage delicate systems. Reapers weren't intended to swipe clean dimensions they were intended to keep order in complicated ecosystems by causing as little injury and intrusion as possible. It was precise work and one of the reasons Atemu appreciated working with others where he could pick up their unique, interesting, word combos.

The Seer however did not waver like Atemu hoped. It rolled back but had enough loose limbs to immediately be back on its feet even if its arms were bent backwards. Atemu's spell had sliced it but not at all slowed it down.

"_MAIM!_" He attempted, nothing significant appeared to change, it forced the Seer back out of grabbing reach true but didn't cease Atemu's swelling panic. "_DESTROY!"_

It was increasingly difficult to construct spells when this blank headed by confusion and trepidation. To make matters worse the Seer found the entire enterprise a hilarious failure and took great joy in laughing at him.

"_DIE!_" Nothing, he didn't have the right strength in his emphasis, Atemu was forced down a tunnel of alliteration to try and ferret something affective out as he backed up under the Seer's parrying lunges. "_DESTROY!_"

As before it sliced the amused beast but hardly solved his problem.

"_DISARM!_"

It slid back a foot or so on the linoleum.

"_DISABLE! DIFFUSE!_"

It lurched to a halt, hacking, and Atemu's chest tightened.

'_Enforce some order on them,_' Amar's knowing voice ordered, _'they're Chaos. Fight back with order._'

"_PURIFY!_" He compelled passionately and, to his relieved amazement, the Seer contorted wailing as though its skin were tightening as it curled on itself like a burning snake.

"_SANCTIFY!_"

Another beautiful contortion the lethal body hissing, cracking…

"_ABSOLVE!_"

Atemu found himself channelling every religiously loaded movie he'd ever watched in the real world as the Seer began to crack spewing purple pus and smoke like a carnival attraction.

"_EXCORCISE!_" He hounded that one home, verbose, passion and thrill coursing back through him as the security of a victory in sight presented itself for his claiming.

The Seer screamed, a woman's noise, and seemed to crackle and splutter into nothing but dried, shrivelled, pieces. As Atemu watched they smoked, evaporating, all stains phasing into utter void and nothingness.

He was shaking with the sheer weight of exhaustion when he forced himself to jog back to Atreyu's conflict. His feet might as well have turned to lead and it was one of the first occasions he'd ever experienced a physically draining sensation here on the opposing side of the Veil. As nothing here was truly physical he had never really been tired but his energy was depleted now without an unlocked core to draw on. He would only get that enduring energy of a Specialist, a Champion, when he unlocked the memories of his past lives and discovered his true calling within the ranks. He sincerely hoped however that it was not to fight Seers.

Atreyu's shoulders were bobbing when Atemu returned to him. His Needle had become a lance, long, thin and precisely sharp hued in the most brilliant metallic indigo. The Seers were fragments, utterly obliterated, and the battle seemed not to have truly exhausted him as much as some other pain.

Atemu waited, quiet but assured Atreyu was aware of him as, with the loving hands of a craftsmen, the Faen mended the wounds the Seers had inflicted upon the reality of this pocket dimension. He took to re-sewing the Veil's minor tear with his Needle which was, at once, very small and brilliantly sparkling between his fingers. Drawing back together the fractures where reality split open in the hallway scene to expose a dark void world which he slowly eradicated from their view.

Atemu was sure it was very glorious to watch this Fairy slay the dragons and the nightmares but as Atreyu gave the very meekest, tender, sound that was to him something of a choked sniff Atemu was radically reminded of the implications of this all. Atreyu still had no Champion. Jenzar Fraveous had still yet to manifest, to emerge or return to him since their last reincarnation on the Natural side of the Veil. Atemu could not imagine why or what would keep a creature the same form as Amar Seirramoura from its purpose and he wasn't sure if Atreyu could either. Worse than that Atreyu and Jenzar had been lovers since before the term existed, since before the Veil existed, since before time or structure or anything had taken a consistent shape…

He couldn't appreciate a love that vast. How two people could adore each other so righteously through an immortal eternity without drifting or hating was a mystery to him in the modern Natural world he came from. Not even Yami's parents had a perfect love that could last such a length of time let alone one that could cross the breadth of the universe in its stride. Why Jenzar Fraveous had vanished, why Atreyu could not find him, were mysteries bizarre even for the Supernaturalists. The relationship between a Faen and their Champion was one of the most enduring, unchanging, fixtures of the universe. That was, from an outsider's perspective of course, because when Atemu considered it internally how could Atreyu bear to be, bear to stand or fight, without knowing where Jenzar was? Without having Jenzar to support him through trials like tonight's hunt? If they loved each other so much, and Atemu had no doubt they did from how Atreyu spoke of Jenzar and how perfectly idolatrous Atreyu was himself, how could they stand to be apart?

"Congratulations," Atreyu rewarded through Atemu's musings, "you dissected a Seer all by yourself."

"Dissected?" He frowned. The old ones were always very particular with their language. "Not killed?"

"Seers had no physical form to kill," the Faen reminded him, "and you can't kill a soul because it's immortal. When we stop Seers we force them into pieces. We take them out of the game for a limited amount of time as they are forced to reform but you can't destroy matter or create it sadly. The universe needs them causing mayhem just like it needs us to fix it. If we were really meant to eradicate them like vermin there wouldn't be so precious few Faens."

"Of course," it only made sense to Atemu but he rued it wearily.

"Go rest," Atreyu instructed, "you deserve it."

Atemu was glad for the sincerity that Atreyu always carried but despite his kindness the Faen was still aloof to him. That tender intimacy of their friendship had vanished recently since Atreyu had confessed he was upset with Atemu. Atreyu was once again as obscure to Atemu as the Angel was to Joan.

* * *

Yami hadn't been on a bus in yonks. He hadn't exactly day dreamed about the miseries of Atreyu Damestaire recently either for that matter. Today was exceptional however. It drew attention that really merited he stop day dreaming because he had another one of his strange dates with Yugi today.

Yugi himself seemed a little distant but at least on the front of his health Yami could discern no new wounds and there was that original pep in his step that suggested he'd had some invigorating rest since their last meeting. Something Yami himself rather desperately needed. He threw his arm over the back of the bus seat and Yugi rather covertly leant into him. It was a just a fraction, something done for desire rather than need which both greatly pleased Yami and seemed to remind him all at once of Yugi's indomitable independence from aid.

Still Yugi had been revealing to a point. He was, after all, taking Yami to somewhere more his own space than shared ground. He was taking Yami somewhere he wanted to go, somewhere he knew, somewhere Yami had never taken the incentive to go see himself. Yami wasn't quite sure what he was expecting from the Botanic Gardens but he pictured they'd be as pretty and prim as any other garden. He'd been through a Prime Minister's garden of some sort on a brief tangle in Australia which had been a very grand kind of picturesque posh.

Once Yami settled that, deciding he was passing through Yugi's wall, the young man felt all the warmer, all the closer, pressed back into him. Yami eased his arm off the back of the seat to rest round Yugi's shoulders rather cautious of how this authoritative sprite might redirect him if the action wasn't to his tastes but Yugi mercifully allowed it. More than that Yugi let his head lull back into Yami's shoulder as he locked his eyes on the passing landscape and the author took the intrinsic permission to hold him tighter.

It was beyond perplexing the exact stripe of Yugi's control over him. He was dignified while possessing a relatable mundaneness. Subtly unyielding while being utterly compassionate. That old description of the dark, unknowable, but nurturing sea seemed an appropriate metaphor. Truthfully Yami's desire to be close to Yugi was perhaps better explained using Atreyu however. It really was the same concept: a divinely delicate, almost a cult idol, which Yami revered, loved, ached for intimacy with but was so reverent of that it had the power to paralyse him. Atemu would never intrude to touch Atreyu without permission, it was akin to defiling sacred ground, and in the same way Yugi had proclaimed himself worthy of the same respect and was to Yami equally sacred. He was equally precious.

Yami suppressed that line of reasoning. Thinking about Atemu was becoming frightening. It gave him a headache. He was sure he was losing his mind, honestly, in a way he'd never experienced. He was getting far too transfixed in his fantasy by translating it to reality. Really, what proof did he have that his dreams were anything but dreams? What proof had he ever had? At most a few odd coincidences, ridiculous theories about Yugi's secrets and the young man's similarities to a being too fictional to be real…

Yami was too heavy headed to talk but he needed to become more sociable before they reached their destination. He plucked at Yugi's shoulder and the young man blinked back to him tugging an ear piece loose.

"Can I listen?" Yami asked.

"Sure," Yugi smiled, he moved one ear piece from his outer ear to press into the one beside Yami's cheek and handed the author the free headphone ear-bud to place in his own.

What on earth was that? He frowned. The first song was bizarre till he caught the dialect of the English lyrics. Some Vocaloid cover of Katy Perry's ET he finally deciphered. He had to chuckle, easing, when _Carry on my Wayward Son_ began and Yugi mouthed along beside him.

_Carry on my wayward son there'll be peace when you are done, lay your weary head to rest, don't you cry no more… though my eyes could see I still was a blind man, I hear the voices when I'm dreaming… _

He found himself unpacking the narrative: charades, journeys over mysterious seas, new purpose, hidden knowledge… Beautiful, momentarily unsettling, themes to Yami but Yugi loved it too much for him to ask for a change of pace.

Sweeter English next, some American country singer, Yami didn't mind it. He didn't catch the chorus till it came round the second time.

_Gravity is gravity, it doesn't try to pull you down, stone is stone, it can't help but hold it's ground… light is light it just known how to fill a room…and dark is dark so the stars have a place to shine… _

Then it was over. Dance tracks, the Ataris, more Vocalnoid, then something _filthy_ Yami half recognised a second in as Darren Hayes_ Irresistible_. That turned his mood right around but even then he had this acute uncertainty about whether or not Yugi was pursuing the same sexual line of thought as it played. Yugi wasn't embarrassed enough to change it, so, was that teasing? Somehow Yami couldn't picture Yugi as sexual and to his own surprise found it hard to picture a sexual fantasy starring Yugi. Again that imagine of defiling something precious came to him which seemed silly. Yugi wasn't delicate.

The next song started soft and assaulted him. There was no other word for the fish-hook way it immediately yanked Yami's attention to focus on the tail end of the smutty notes of the previous tune which had lulled him.

_My heart is a weapon of war. My voice is my weapon of choice. An eye for an eye, a heart for a heart, a soul for a soul. We fight for the dream, we fight to the death, we fight for controool!_

It was gone, it startled him, he was half dissecting it when Yugi flicked to the next track unceremoniously. Why change that one when the smut hadn't fazed him? Yami was over reading this but he knew he'd bee goggling it later. He was fast becoming a detective, a Sherlock Holmes, mad, obsessed…

_The Botanic Gardens_ was an ultimately misleading title if ever Yami heard one. They weren't gardens at all. Yami, who as previously mention was about as healthy as a first year art student, was going to die from an effort induced heart attack after a leisurely stroll through these

'_gardens_' (he'd call readers to notice the use of massive sarcasm quotations).

"They're not literally called gardens are they?" He demanded as he faced down where Yugi was suggesting, ordering really, they head. "You're messing with me. That was artistic flourish on your part."

"Nope, they're actually called the Botanic Gardens," he answered smugly. Yugi found Yami's hesitant horror quite amusing.

"That's not a garden. That's a mountain."

"It's a _hill_."

"It's a mountain covered in Red Riding Hood's forest."

"It's a hill covered in segmented but seamlessly flowing patches of vegetation styled after different types of gardens and wildernesses: gullies, woodlands, European forests… there's even a rose garden and a rock garden up there somewhere." Yugi elaborated beautifully spreading his hands out over the manmade lake where they were currently observing the main, non-field, portion of the reserve as the ducks and a particularly nasty black swan were hassled by children below their incline.

"'_Somewhere'_ and '_Up There'_being the key words," Yami baulked before adding at the compulsion of his inner little girl: "it looks steep."

"There are paths and signs." Yugi stressed his reassurance lightly. "It's _gorgeous_."

"Is it too late to mention I have a serious heart condition?" Yami added. "The layman's terminology for it is: _Fat-man's Fear_."

"It's not too late," the smaller purred patiently, "if you want you can stay here and I'll abandon you."

"You'd seriously _abandon _me?" He returned stressing the particularly dire choice of words as if he were some desperately vulnerable newborn Yugi was tossing to the wolves.

"I freaking love this place." Yugi warned. "I will leave you behind like the fat kid at dodge ball practice. This is not _Saving Private Ryan_. I will leave a man behind."

"You have the shrivelled heart of an ogre."

"Better find your man balls and follow me then." He teased.

* * *

This was not, Yami realized, some lounge date round the good ol' entertainment box. Once they passed the initial thicket of trees onto the first trail, little more than some narrow set cobble stones, the rest of the world faded from view. Yami caught only distant traces of other wanderers but that might've been more because Yugi chose the steepest, darkest, looking paths into the heart of the mountain scape dragging them up higher and higher. Yugi pulled them through patches Yami was sure weren't official paths given how they had to duck and how mossed, glossed, over the path was or how inhospitably steep.

"If we keep going this way," Yami panted stubbornly behind Yugi's spry, deft, feet, "we're going to run into an goblin."

"Let me deal with the riddles then." Yugi joked but he'd softened his voice considerably since entering the thick.

The panting passed. Yami acclimatised himself and began to realize there was no destination just a long string of increasingly obscure walkways. Once that very human expectation for a goal dissipated, once Yami let it go, he started to sink into the atmosphere of the place.

The trees were massive, overgrown and closed in. In parts he was sure they were in the Black Forest among the oak trees and in others some fairy grove. They passed a walkway or two of chicken wire covered wood bridges over tiny streams running down the mountain side they were rising up. Everything was violently, vibrantly, green. It was camo then lime and viridian but it soaked the air till Yami's lungs were filled with the fresh, pungent, and mingled scent of seclusion. The children down by the lake had been wiped form existence, the birds chirped indecisively but for the most part left he and Yugi in intensely penetrating silence.

The higher they got, the deeper they reached, the more Yugi seemed to glow. His shoulders eased, he beamed to himself, and Yami found the difficulty of his own tension easing significantly the further he lead them. Yami was slow going, at times Yugi a good twenty feet ahead of him on light feet that darted off under trees where the path forked into a significantly tighter trail. Yami would heave himself up after him and Yugi would stay close for a little longer before racing ahead at his own pace once again.

You could forget how old the world was here. It was easy to imagine mankind was still young and this was the only ancient part of the world. Yami very unconsciously found himself convinced he was trying to follow a teasing, luring, Fairy like a lost traveller in an old sonnet by Keats or Wordsworth. The light interplayed between trees, some which were covered brilliantly in red plumage, some which had toppled over and some which exploded with foliage. Yugi brushed everything as he passed, visible but distant, gloriously contented. Yugi drifted one way then, through a patchwork of trees, directly off the path and cautious Yami was still uncomfortable at the idea of calling out so was forced to follow.

Now they were utterly in a thicket, beyond human contact, but Yami discovered he actually quite appreciated the diversion away. There was a deeply comforting element of superstition to being away from the world in a mystifying place like this. The atmosphere radiated, soaked with unconscious natural magic, blotting them to utter insignificance till they were completely enfolded. The reserve couldn't have been as sprawling as it seemed to Yami then but it did feel, distance obscured and closed in, massive. The air felt arcane.

It went without saying there was some unspoken rule about this. The gardeners running the reserve obviously didn't intend for them to go off the path but Yugi was already even further into the artificial wilderness and had plucked his shoes off, to hold them by the heels in one hand, as if they were too human for him.

The landscape dipped naturally into a damp little gully. A natural nest of grass, mushrooms, and orchids bounded by the maples where everything was lush and verdigris but the combinations were nearly unnatural. Yugi found a little patch of the grass to nestle down on. Legs twisted under him, bag and shoes to one side, staring up at the light crisscrossing, breaking, through the church like ceiling towering overhead. Sound was perplexing here. Yami was almost aware of the sound of people laughing but it was vague under the bird calls.

"There's a path a little more that way." Yugi gestured over his shoulder to Yami's confusion then settled right back down sighing, dozing, cooing.

Yami very cautiously took a stiff seat on the ground pulling his knees to his chest. He couldn't deny it was soothing, cathartically beautiful and with the grasses so thick Yugi looked like he was sinking into them wreathed by stubborn little flowering weeds.

"You come here often?" Yami whispered.

"As much as I can get away with," he recollected. "Entry's free, bus fare's cheap, life just gets in the way. It's so replenishing."

"Yeah," he murmured eyes straying, "you're right. It's safe."

There was an element of intensely childish innocence and truth to that idea. It was, at least for the imaginative, the second best embodiment of the ancient world you could find without running off to Europe. Yami supposed he was a little in awe of the effect of the atmosphere.

"Have you ever travelled?" Yami quirked with sudden interest, he slunk onto his hands and knees to lay down beside Yugi in an intrinsic symbol of submission to this whole affair, slumping next him in the damp grass.

"A bit," Yugi admitted, "France, Ireland, Scotland, England…you?"

"Egypt, American, Australia…" Yami answered, it seemed an unnecessary and stupid question on second reflection. What did he want to get at here? Yugi might consent to a little interrogation here. "How's your friend? Ryou?"

"Well his boyfriend didn't break his jaw after all," he snorted, "so he's alright."

"I don't know what to talk about," the author reflected, chuckling but thoroughly frustrated.

Was there any way to ask a meaningful question without being unsubtle or sounding mad? Had Yugi trapped him in a corner? Yami felt increasingly warded off today like their connection was dying. It was terribly frustrating because he couldn't figure out where the source of the thought was. What did he expect to happen today? Did he expect all the answers today?

"Don't have to talk." Yugi reassured him, rolling languidly onto his stomach, little flower flecks still clinging to his hair as he slung one arm over Yami's chest and rested his jaw atop it. "What's wrong?"

"I feel like an idiot again." He confessed childishly.

"This place is kind of disarming." The smaller sighed reverently. "Just relax. Did you ever learn about Romantic poetry, the Sublime, all that conferring with nature stuff? Makes me think of that."

Thank lord, a life line, Yami could talk literature.

"Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge…" he recited knowingly. "I guess you're right. I feel like I'm on the cusp of some big thought I keep skirting. It feels like one of those old fairy tales where a man wanders off into the woods and at some point or another realizes he's gone over the Veil into some fairy space."

"Or some goblin territory, or the home of the Mountain King, or wolves." Yugi grinned. "Or he meets a mysterious women or stranger who charms him and is peculiar-"

"-And inevitably turns out to be something else?"

"Like always," Yugi laughed, "I love old stories like that."

"Me too. I can't get away from writing down that vein," Yami elaborate and found himself shifting under Yugi's weight to place one palm behind his head and let the other rest round Yugi's waist. It was easy. He didn't over think it. This was moving back in the right direction somehow.

"I wish I grew out of it sometimes," Yugi muttered, "that whole fascination with the supernatural, with old stories, with myths and religion and cult knowledge feels like it's going to eat me up sometimes. I really tried to go off it in High School."

"Why?" He frowned. The aesthetic of the pagan utterly suited Yugi. It seemed part of him to associate old elements and fragments of history into his style which he revelled in confidently in front of Yami.

"It's not all good. That's sort of obvious. All the dark things: voodoo, human sacrifice, cannibalism, vampires, body snatchers…I read a lot about them too when I started high school, started exploring that darker aspect, and…" Yugi paused carefully, frowning, "I started to scare myself. I started seeing things and I got freaked out. I thought I was going nuts so I tried to run away from it."

"Seeing things?" Yami whispered. "Like what?"

"Shapes, shadows, dark figures, ambiguous animals, things on top of cupboards looking at me…" he trailed off softly. "I'd think it was raining and it wasn't. I'd hear music at night. I'd feel like all this energy was trying to burst out of me. I was so moody, I'd do little mundane things and I would get this images in my head and they'd just set me off."

"Images? Like junkies? When they see bugs on things?" He attempted to elaborate uselessly as Yugi struggled through the explanation.

"No, like memories, like…" Yugi fumbled for an example. "Once in class we talked about the Black Plague and I was convinced I remembered dying in it. I could_ feel_ the boils. Then, another time, I heard this song and I…I just broke down… I had this thought in my head that I'd been a mother, that I'd had a stillborn, that _my_baby had died…funny things like that. Like my whole mind was cut up in pieces of different people with their own opinions. I didn't ever get multiple personalities or anything like that but it was like the whole universe unfurled and everything was massive, scary, multi-layered."

"Did you tell your parents?" Yami found himself scared, not for Yugi but more selfishly for himself. Was this the kind of thing he was creeping towards? Losing the boundary of fact and fantasy? Convincing himself his characters were real?

"My Grandpa found out." He answered. "I tried just putting all my occult stuff in a box under the bed and ignoring all of it but… he came home one day and I'd broken down crying about wanting to '_go home_' and '_being lost_' and _'missing him so much_'… all this gibberish. I don't remember it well. It was like a fit."

"What'd he do?"

"Took me doctors." Yugi laughed. "I was so scared no one would believe it was actually happening to me and then I was scared they'd put me in some asylum. They tested me silly and then gave my Grandpa, poor guy, that: '_well we don't know but it sounds like this maybe_' answer. They wanted to put me on medication."

"Did you take it?"

"Grandpa and I talked about it. He didn't want to make me and I didn't want to take something that was going to change me. I didn't want something alien in my body messing with my hormones." He gestured at the contagious thought. Like medicine was Voodoo. "So Grandpa and I tried to find different ways to deal with it, home remedies, alternative medicine stuff."

"Did it help?"

"Well…" He sighed. "I was a mess for most of the beginning of high school. Definitely didn't have any friends. So I did a lot of reading. I decided if I knew what was happening to me then maybe I could stop it. Ended up reading more myths and fables and bibles till eventually I just sort of consolidated this idea that there's dark and there's light but what scared me wasn't necessarily trying to hurt me. I tried to listen to it, to live with it, and it turned out that everything was okay, that I could handle it, that my '_delusions_' weren't going to break me. Then I meet Kaiba and Ryou-"

"_Kaiba?" _

"He thought he was going nuts, so did Ryou, and we all sort of leant on each other. We talked about it and we decided that if this stuff was real to us then it was as real as anything could be so we were just going to deal with it. Makes me feel like an alien sometimes, because people don't really get it, but I like to think that I can just see a little more of the universe and now I'm not so overwhelmed by it _I love it_. It makes everything richer. It made me feel so loved after my parents died."

"What do you mean?"

"I meet Kaiba and Ryou, I figured out I could do all these things I didn't ever think I could," he beamed softly, "when I thought I was a good for nothing mouse. Then I realized I could handle living with all this and I could get other people through it. I felt stronger, I had friends, I have all these presences everywhere that make the world seem bigger and more beautiful. I guess it's like how some monks feel closer to God. I feel like there's this universal current I can tap into and it makes me feel less lonely. I feel like there are forces watching over me. When I was little I was always so terrified that when I died there'd be nothing but this black void but I don't feel like that anymore. I don't want to say that it's all real, that there's magic or something, but it's real to me and that's about as good as it gets."

"Lord," Yami muttered but he felt steadily relieved by the concept that, maybe, he wasn't the only one experiencing this sensation. He felt more akin to Atemu, braver and more natural in his assurances. "No wonder you make me feel like an idiot. It's a miracle your head doesn't explode."

"You think I'm nuts?" It wasn't an accusation. It wasn't even nervous after that confession. Yugi was just curious.

"No," he promised, "I just wish I was clearer about what _I_believe. I wish I felt like I knew. I wish I could experience something reaffirming like that. I keep scaring myself off dealing with it. I keep touching the nerve, getting lost and then feeling like I'm losing my grip on reality. I'm worried I'm going to fall over and never be able to pick myself up in the right order again if I look too closely at what I believe is real or not."

"It's easier when you're not the only one going nuts." Yugi laughed. "Having to keep Ryou and Kaiba from falling apart made me pull myself together. It made me be tough, made me know what I was capable of, it was this baptism of fire."

"I'm surprised you don't talk about this more. I mean, it's still happening, isn't it? You still see things, experience things, feel things like that?"

"Yeah but of course I don't talk about it," he shrugged. "It's personal. It scares people. I don't care if someone doesn't believe me when I say the things I see exist but at the same time it's none of their business how I see the world. I don't want to be converted. I don't want someone to save me. I don't _want_ to me be medicated. Sometimes when I let someone in on this they just think I need to take some pills. That it's a problem and not a lifestyle. I just want people to accept me the real me even if it is eccentric and if they won't it's better they don't know at all so I won't get hurt by friends thinking I'm crazy or overzealous."

"I don't." Yami found it poignant to reaffirm his loyalty. Yugi seemed to appreciate it and slipped his head off his arm and onto Yami's chest.

"I'm glad."

"Why'd you tell me?" He whispered.

"Because I figured you'd be open to it. You sort of seemed to be onto me anyway or at least sense it." Yugi muttered. "It dictates a big part of my life and my long relationships, this whole secret, so it's hard to really be honest without putting the fact I see things, which I believe in, on the table. At the same time I don't want to scare you off and I don't want you knowing that unless I know you're not going to use it against me or laugh at me. You just…I figured you'd be responsive, you'd listen…"

"You're very cautious, aren't you?" Yami realized for himself. Yugi had been screening him for this initiation into the Cult of the Surreal he figured. This was the big impenetrable wall of secrecy. This was why Yugi wavered from the totally truth because, like Yami, he didn't want to be called mad. He'd told Yami the greatest secret only now because he'd deemed him worthy. "You…you really do like me, don't you?"

Yugi must've. Yami felt it sink in.

"Duh," Yuig whispered hoarsely, raising his head just a fraction to catch Yami's eyes with his nearly colouring, utterly smiling, till the older man melted with beaming satisfaction.

It was a key in the lock moment. Yami knew Yugi wanted him, knew Yugi adored him on some level just like he returned or at least Yugi accepted his affection. Everything was stellar. He wasn't the only one falling here, not at all, Yugi must've been tumbling.

* * *

1 All the songs are actual songs. You can listen to them if you want plot hints or a soundtrack to the fic (I might even post a full soundtrack later if you guys want?) in order in this chapter we heard: Vocaloid Luka's rendition of _ET_ (a cover of the Katy Perry song), Kansass _Carry on my Wayward Son_, Jewel _What You Are_ (which was part of a great Victoria's secret show~), Darren Hayes _Irresistible_ (thank you _Chiro!_), Emilie Autumn _FLAG_ (Yugi's theme song~).

2 I live near these Botanic Gardens in Adelaide, South Australia, Australia. They're lovely.

3 I try not to give you guys anything I don't know about so I'm sorry if Yugi's mental breakdown sounds unrealistic. It was difficult to write _but_: I did experience this, as Yugi describes, during the early part of high school and I'm currently still on medication for a combination of things including something my medical practitioners loosely refer to under the umbrella of terms '_psychosis'_ or '_schizophrenia_'. (I'm absolutely peachy though guys so don't worry at all)

4 Remember kids: we don't have to trust Yugi. He can lie. About how much and about what, well…that's up to you to guess~


	5. Damsels In and Out of Distress

Hey Beautifuls, as always I hope you enjoy and don't hate me too much for the _semi_ cliff-hanger hanging over this chapter!

* * *

Chapter 5: _Damsels In and Out of Distress_

"This is why you don't date," Yami supposed quietly feeling exceptionally brave and languid as his arms drew Yugi close and held them together. Things made sense.

"This makes it complicated." He agreed nose brushing the tendons of Yami's neck as he settled into the grip. "I don't want to lie to someone. So I decided not to try anything till I was on top of it which, wouldn't you figure, took about eight years."

"So I'm _your _first boyfriend." He grinned. "I seem to remember you teasing me about that."

"You're a pussycat." Yugi scoffed. "Tease still stands."

"You're gorgeous." Yami was gushing again, Lord help him, but that inkling of Atemu bravery still held out. "I want to know everything."

"Park closes at five. We haven't got enough time for _everything_."

"What-"

"Two options." Yugi hushed shuffling onto his elbows. "I can answer your questions now or later. If you pick later there's a door prize."

"A good one?" The grin that forced its way across his features was inescapable.

"I'm sick of exposition." He laughed. "So yeah, I'll make it worth your while."

Yami had sunk into a level of contented euphoria where he felt, for the first time, as lightly confident and brave as Atemu. So without further alluding, without asking for permission, he slipped his hand over Yugi's cheek to tangle tightly in his hair and draw them together. Yugi squeaked, a bizarrely delicate sound, but melted instantaneously to rest his full weight into Yami. It was a war victory, almost, Yami was convinced his heart was going to burst when what he could only call a Reaper's strength compelled him to exert the muscles in his legs and roll them in the grass. He was convinced by some supernatural force he was stained as dark skinned as Atemu now with this bravery as his arms wrapped round Yugi's waist, cradled his back, lips furrowing over the little one's perfect set.

Yugi was open. Not physically more his heart, for lack of a better metaphor. The strangeness hanging over them suddenly felt clean and clear. Yami was sure beyond the mere trappings of his imagination he could feel real magic pulsating out of Yugi now, unhidden, coursing against Yami's own uncertain strain. Unobscured by careful strategies Yugi was cooing under him, sighing, arm round his shoulders, hands worrying his cheek bones with decades of familiarity. It was entirely a lover's touch the sort of careful stroke that came with experience, knowing, time… all of which Yugi lacked practically but held innately. He was receptive to Yami, he wanted Yami to see this and have access to him like this. It was flattering, a secret, which was so totally natural to Yami's inner Atemu. Ancient ideals of private ritual rites seemed the best comparison to Yami because kissing Yugi, having the bravery to do so without specific permission, was nothing if not overwhelming.

It was warrior's pride Yami felt when he pushed his weight into his knees in the grass and dug his fingers into Yugi's still unblemished clothing. They hadn't seemed to detach, to stop kissing, for long motions. Natural, timeless, sexuality radiated and the grove's atmosphere felt mellowed to the perfect temperature. The consistency of the sensation, the hum of the energies around them, fluctuated perfectly in sync with Yugi's magic and Yami's followed the beat more drum-like, pounding, than the high fluting kind of pitch he associated with the living flower he was crushing against his chest.

Yugi separated from Atreyu in that thought while still being totally aligned to him in every detail. The only difference was that Yugi, still just as much the fairy, the immortal, the mystery, was unfolded more totally as Yami's. Atreyu was unreachable, a far off star, Yugi was captured in his arms with no contrasting claim upon him. Yugi didn't belong to the unknown Jenzar Fraveous like Atreyu did. All his unknowable details and fixtures were no longer intimidating to Yami who felt he'd been given the right, the courage, to explore them without thinking of them as someone else's kingdom.

Yugi's phone twinkled in his bag, buzzing bee vibrations with a shrill little lyre like ringtone, association to Yugi made anything more naturally supernatural to Yami who was himself very much the heroic Atemu in his own heart right now.

"Should you answer that?" Yami whispered, hand cradling Yugi's head like a newborn, fingers tangled thickly in the locks.

"I don't care." Yugi answered drawing him back stubbornly to drink from all the adoration Yami was pouring into him. Yugi clutched him close telling Yami, in not so many words, he was never allowed to leave.

The phone continued insistently, Yugi's heels twisted in the plush grass, Yami felt their lips slicken. Sounds of general chattering rose and fell along the nearby path outside the gully they were hidden in. All Yami heard was the birds shrill cries, the rustle of the maples and Yugi's sighs as his petite thumb worked the grove of Yami's jaw.

"Yugi?" A child cried uncertainly and spluttering Yugi disentangled his lips from Yami's.

His eyes were wide, startled, phone blaring beside them in the forgotten bag. Yami's captive fairy seemed off put by the presence of other humans, trapped, and swore laughing in a heap.

"Of all the luck!" He hissed in a giggling whisper.

"Yugi!" The child tried once more from the path. "Are you there?"

Yugi sighed, very gently placing his hands on Yami's shoulders to force the courageous prince back, beaming in that warm fire-side way as he fumbled for his things and straightened his ruffled hair called back to the path:

"Hey Mokie!" He was straining to contain his amusement. "Be there in a sec!"

"Who's that?" Yami whispered as Yugi fumbled, the pair of them still achingly close, knees between legs, chests by shoulders as Yugi slipped his shoes back on.

"A friend," Yugi sighed, "let's go say hello. We've been caught."

"Sure," Yami chuckled. He couldn't wipe the radiant smile off his face as he brushed himself off and gingerly assisted Yugi to his feet. The smaller threaded his arm through the crux of Yami's elbow and ducking under a maple branch lead them back to the path.

"Yugi!" The child cried, a teenager actually Yami realized, throwing himself into Yugi's arms which spread and enfolded round the poor urchin like wings.

"Hi Mokie," Yugi cooed, pressing the young man to his breast half motherly. "What are you doing here?"

"Seto finally agreed to take me," he bounced, "he said we should call you and see if you wanted to come too or meet up. You're always here so we thought you might be around already."

"Oh did he?" The young man smiled, knowing old eyes set in a sweet young face, as he glanced beyond the child thrown about his waist and brought Yami's attention to the tall man standing stifling a few feet off.

"What are you looking at?" Seto Kaiba grunted shamelessly, arms folded tight to his chest, as pieces fell together in Yami's mind. He had no doubt this was Seto Kaiba and he knew complicatedly from Yugi that they'd been followed somehow. "Who's he?"

"Mokuba," Yugi diverted pointedly, eyes flaring with cheek. "This is Yami, he's a friend of mine, Yami this is Mokuba Kaiba. He's awesome."

"Dame straight!" The teen asserted thrusting his hand out to Yami.

"Watch your mouth." Kaiba snapped over them at the young Mokuba while the boy and Yugi shared a little eye roll at his expense. "Yami _who_ Motou?"

"You tell me!" Yugi laughed. "Your spy network's evidently the best in the country."

"Yami Sennen," the author intervened, he couldn't quite tell if they were arguing but he certainly didn't want to be the cause of some friction between such an old, critical, friend of Yugi's and Joey's potential boyfriend. Atemu's spirit was, after all, still keeping him courageous. "I'm Joey's friend."

"I don't believe it." He scoffed tartly shaking his head rather pointedly at Yugi who did little else but stick his tongue out beaming with satisfaction.

"Curiosity satisfied now?" The young man teased.

"Yami Sennen?" Mokuba frowned. "Oh my god! Do you write _Trance_?"

"Yeah," he chuckled, "you read them?"

"I love them!" The teen cried joyously, rather distractingly, as Yami attempted to watch the little gestures and glances passing covertly between Yugi and Kaiba.

"I hate them." His elder brother shot back. "So do Yugi and Ryou."

"Shut up Kaiba." Yugi laughed dodging to Yami's fumbling glances. "Ignore him. He's on his period."

"Come have lunch with Mokuba and I," the man returned sharply, "and bring your boyfriend."

"Why?" Yugi propositioned.

"Oh please!" Mokuba cried bouncing on his heels. "That'd be so awesome!"

"You heard him." Kaiba gestured illustratively.

"Oh that's low!" He sighed chuckling. "Alright, fine, but only for Mokuba! Do you mind Yami?"

"No, not at all," he attempted to placate which didn't seem to be going very well given the frosty reception Kaiba insisted on dolling out. "Sounds great."

"Suck up." Kaiba scoffed turning on the trail. "Mokuba, Motou, let's go."

"Lord above," Yugi sighed shrugging off his backpack, "hold your horses you jack ass."

Bamboozled Yami was left blinking as Yugi drew his coat out of his satchel and wrapped it round his pert shoulders clipping the little gold clasps of the thick navy caplet. It was really quite regal with the faux fur neck and as Yugi slipped his hand through the slit in one side to grasp Mokuba's eager hand Yami was left wondering what exactly he had done to so offend Kaiba. Was he always like this? He had no memory of meeting him, still, even after seeing him now. Oh he had a natural burgeoning dislike for him swelling up given what a snide git Kaiba seemed to be but no memory of how he'd ever offended him. Lord help him if this bastard was so close to Yugi and Joey he couldn't get rid of the fucker. Kaiba was nothing if not rude as he turned, strode off ahead and Yami, lost for a reason, had to snort. What had he meant by saying Yugi, Ryou and himself despised Yami's work? Yugi had been very clear to say some of his friends loved the books and that he himself had never read them.

He supposed Yugi was right and he should ignore Kaiba's hazing. Perhaps he was just protective after a long friendship with Yugi which he must've held that dear. If Yami was Yugi's first partner it only made sense to be protective especially if Yugi, like the Kaibas from what Yami had heard, were fatherless orphans. He had always been very authoritative over Joey whose father might as well have been dead, he took pride in that, and Joey was quite attracted to having such an influence so it didn't appear unreasonable to him that Kaiba might follow suit in the same role over Yugi, Mokuba and perhaps Ryou? Then again Yugi was a creature who hardly needed any saving, no damsel in distress, and he had told Yami that it was he who lead their little trio of mystics during high school. Was that it? Was Kaiba worried Yugi might tell Yami about his own trifling's in the supernatural that he would rather keep private? God, who knew!

He felt very bad for thinking so, as he slung his arm carefully round Yugi's shoulders squeezing the plush fabric and thrusting his free hand into the pocket of his jeans, but there was something very pleasurable about the adventure of it. The mystery, this possibility, that all his dreams of Atemu had some vague connection to a supernatural reality made him feel bolstered and excited for the first time.

* * *

The open field by the lake was thick with daffodils where Yugi set them down. He and Mokuba claimed most of the blanket for themselves and distributed lashings of chocolate between each other merrily enough as the teenager hassled Yami with all number of questions about his favourite series ('_of all time_' apparently).

"Who's your favourite character?" Yami supposed which all but made Mokuba gush. The kid was really rather delightful. That or Yami was an egotist.

"Cobalt," Mokuba elaborated as if it were a given, and Kaiba grunted brushing himself off to leave for a stroll. "I love Atemu though and Trey's amazing, he kind of reminds me of Yugi, so…"

"Me too." Yami admitted, which the teen adored, flushing as Yugi twitched towards them curiously slinging his arm round Mokuba.

"I do?" He supposed oddly. "Why? Who's Trey?"

"Atreyu Damestaire. He's great," Mokuba chattered tumbling into a much more comprehensive explanation than Yami himself could offer finishing: "he's a Faen. The bad-est kicker of asses _ever_."

"A-huh," Yugi chuckled, "and I remind you of this guy_ why?_"

"You carry the same sort of demeanour." Yami interrupted as Mokuba struggled for proper elaboration. "It's a compliment. He's very popular with the fans."

"Okay then," he shrugged easily but appeared hardly interested in the specifics glistening over the issue, "I can deal with that. So how's school runt?"

Yugi leant back into his arms under the caplet, which obscured them, and Mokuba fell back into his lap with a groan that stirred up Yugi's shimmering smile. Yami had the impression that the teenager could not have been safer at that moment and that Kaiba knew as much. Mokuba began to speak, very confessional, as Yugi must've oft given him permission to do and Yami took it as a cue to stretch his legs for a moment so the intimacy could develop. The poor kid's brother must've been busy. It must've been hard for him to get much attention entirely from Kaiba.

"I'll be back in a min," he departed to Yugi's grunt of acknowledgement as he smiled down into Mokuba's face.

When Yami took stride beside Kaiba in his circuit round the lake a strange sense overcame him. For a moment he could pretend he was in fact prancing beside Mr Darcy or some other equally disapproving Edwardian gentleman. Kaiba gave that vibe. His buttons were tight enough to make everything seem suit like and his disapproving frown gave Yami the impression of trying to appeal to the wealthy guardian of his intended. All the tall man needed was a top hat in these fields and Yami would be lost in the fantasy altogether. Not an unfamiliar idea for today.

"So you've known Yugi for a long time?" Yami tried casually.

"There's no point playing nice, we both know it," Kaiba grunted.

"I'm sorry?" He frowned. "Listen, I don't know what Joey told you but I've never seen you before in my life. So whatever you think I've done you must have me confused with someone."

Kaiba laughed, stalling in his step, shaking his head.

"You really want to play coy?" He snorted. "Fine. You're an even bigger dumbass than I expected."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Yami snapped tightly.

"Whatever," the man dismissed, "you have fun playing at house with Yugi."

"I'm not playing at anything," he grumbled sharply, he would've shouted but he was aware of how close Mokuba and Yugi were from them. "I don't care what your problem is with me but I'll have you know I rather adore Yugi."

Kaiba frowned all at once as if Yami had said something very funny, or mentally retarded, with his fists clenched and yet the author felt he'd also expressed something very bizarre to the man. Kaiba's frown worried his features solemnly, calculating the details of Yami's stubborn face and then, magically, his expression upturned into a smug, sneering, smirk.

"_Really?_" He sighed in amazement all that nastiness condensing to give the appearance of evaporating without ever really leaving. "Good for you. That's great."

Yami was flabbergasted. He was so brilliantly, joyous, snide at Yami's expense. Did Kaiba think of him as some playboy out to break Yugi's heart? How on earth would he ever get that impression? Had he passed some appropriation test to gauge him worthy of Yugi's love? Either way the wealthy gentleman thrust his hand out to Yami's for a belated shake the author had no choice but to receive gingerly.

"You know how these things are," Kaiba shrugged amusedly, "I have to give you a hard time."

_"Right_," Yami didn't believe a damn word of it. Kaiba loathed him. It radiated off the man in thick, nauseous waves, and Yami couldn't comprehend how Yugi could love such a foul creature. He was still Atemu in his heart, still courageous today, and he felt all the more suspicious as Kaiba gestured they had best return to the picnic with a cocking of his thumb and a more cordial voice.

Yugi shot Kaiba a glance that wavered between benevolent and dreadfully accusatory but the man took a seat by Yugi's side with that most contented smirk and Yugi's shoulders fell cautiously. On questioning inspection from his young lover Yami waved his hand in a dismissive gesture, forced a smile and took his own seat.

* * *

"Kaiba wasn't too hard on you was he?" Yugi asked as they followed the empty road back to the bus stop. Apparently still trying to discern exactly what had taken place between them. "He's a rude prick."

"It's alright," Yami retorted restlessly, Kaiba off put him. "He must just really care about you."

"Oh I don't know about that," the smaller supposed, "he assumes I can handle myself. I think he's just a busy body really. Doesn't understand why I'm dating now probably and rather than ask _me _about it he'd rather interrogate you."

"I don't know," he sighed. "He seems to think I insulted him once, or something, but I swear I've never met the jerk. It's kind of annoying. He relaxed a bit around me though after I told him that so maybe its water under the bridge."

"Kaiba builds moats for a living." Yugi joked drily. "I wouldn't count on it. Don't let it bother you anyway. I believe you. Whatever his problem is he'll get over it. Just let him beat you at a game of chess and he'll let it go. He's not one to admit he's wrong so if he's mixed you up with someone he'll never own up to it."

"So why are you friends again?" Yami chuckled.

"We're family." Yugi replied curtly. "If I make family then it's final. I stick with you no matter what. I might not always _like _Kaiba but I love him, after everything we went through, so he's family. That's all that matters. I don't have the choice of getting rid of him or turning my back on Ryou's crappy relationship as far as I'm concerned. Sucks but that's life."

"You're loyal," the author praised gently, hands in his pockets as Yugi threaded his arm through the crux of Yami's elbow.

When they came to a stop at the bright yellow pole, emblazoned with the time table panel for the buses, Yami took his time to take in the fresh air of their surroundings. Yugi, on the other hand, was much more transfixed by the moon hanging over head. He gave it a lover's smile and in the silence made the tiniest kissing motion with his lips that Yami could perceive and then became very embarrassed when he caught the author staring.

"I love the moon," Yugi muttered, "she's like a mother. I feel like she watches over me or at the very least she radiates energy I can sync with. When I feel bad usually there's no moon or if I'm sad and I look up to her she fills me with this soothing light and…" he blushed. "I don't know. She heals, she understands, she the same wavelength as me. Whatever spirit inhabits her, watches through her vantage point, knows who I am. So I try to pay her respect, show I love her and acknowledge her. It sounds stupid."

"No it doesn't." Yami insisted hooking his arm round Yugi's shoulders. "It sounds gorgeous. She's your… lighthouse? The point of reference for normalcy and goodness in the night. It makes sense to me. If I was young and scared and seeing demons or spirits I'd get attached to her too."

"She's…" the young man wanted to speak but appeared cautious of his wording. "I like to think she's mankind's guiding star. It's like how she controls the tides of the ocean and all its mystery around us. I think she controls, or influences, the tide of the Supernatural around us. She's misleading. I mean to the rest of the universe, looking in, she's just a rock circling our planet but from down here she's the brightest light, the secret star, in the sky. When I'm aware of the Supernatural it's like she's aware of me more and she says not to worry about it. That I'm just like all those strange creatures are, same substance, same origin, and we can be quite happy together under her. She's private. She's in the sky weather the sun's up or down if you look hard enough."

"You are magnificent." Yami cooed warmly a little overcome but his own romantic tendencies at the imagery. "I swear you elaborate things I couldn't put into words. I'm _so_glad you're telling me all this. I want to get it."

"Have to figure out where you fit in the universe." Yugi smiled. "You'll have some kind of purpose in the big picture. We'll have to figure out how we relate to each other on that."

"I can't wait." He promised. "I hope I've met you before in some other life time."

"Probably," the young man shrugged gently, "I tend to attract the same people back over and over again. I think they're the only ones who can stand me."

"You're addictive."

"You are a charmer." Yugi snorted cheekily rewarding Yami with a peck to the cheek as he forced himself onto his tiptoes.

* * *

Yami had never been of anything but sturdy health. It gave his mother great comfort and she put it down to his Egyptian heritage, via his father, claiming her Japanese family had always been rather frail. She appeared a little concerned at times that one day Yami's enduring body would give out, become Japanese in that sense, and cease to retain all the Egyptian he'd gained from his mysterious father. Yami had never worried actively and neither had his publisher.

"There are another few conventions that want to have you." His publisher insisted in the phone a day or two after his date with Yugi. "It'll be good for coverage."

"And fun," Yami supposed casually, "sounds good. When? Where?"

Really he was hardly involved. He was still daydreaming about Yugi, still amped up on new found confidence and security. He hadn't convinced Yugi to cross the threshold into his house yet nor had Yugi given Yami the pleasure of knowing at all where he lived but they were moving along very well he thought. It was all the more like Yugi, actually, to think of houses as almost sacred spaces. Entering Yami's, even with his permission, was a gesture with implications to Yugi and knowing where Yugi lived, again, was akin to being given the details of the specific location of a fairy grove. It was guarded knowledge to Yugi, implicit detail, and Yami could respect that given how magnificently, charmingly, mythical he found the young man's behaviour. It was a novelty to have such eccentric anachronisms.

Feeling like a celebrity for a moment however did have its swaying advantages that drew Yami's attention. He loved knowing he wasn't writing to a faceless nothingness but to people. Cup in hand, fresh and warm, he made his way from the kitchen back to the lounge with the phone cradled to his ear.

"So _gjdfnk_-" Yami swayed a little as the voice faded in and out "-Yami? You still there?"

"Huh?" He stabled himself. "Yeah! No, go on?"

"Right-"

Yami felt queasy. Hit by a wave of something hot and uncomfortable that infiltrated his temples to his gut. It was a sickening sensation, more between his ears than in his belly, made his feet unsteady.

He stumbled, fading sickly, gripped the couched…

Dropped the phone, watched it spread over the carpet out of view, terrified to break the mug…

He was sure he was going to throw up, he felt tugged in funny directions, painfully sea sick…

"**ATEMU**_**"**_

He felt the word more than he heard it.

The mug fell, his publisher raved in low static out of range across the room, and Yami hit the floor.

* * *

"Atemu!" Amar shook him brutishly.

Coughing, sickened, Atemu turned in his grip, struggling free, to lurch spluttering over the bare earth. He felt the direst urge to vomit but found no bile and grabbing him by the shoulders Amar Seirramoura and another hauled Atemu to his feet between them.

"Atemu Pheramora?" The second Reaper ruffled him, patting his cheek, "you there brother?"

"What…?" Atemu groaned. "What happened?"

"Atemu Pheramora this is Seviticus Prodius," Amar explained more than introduced, "he's the Champion of the second Earth Faen Vegas like I am the Champion of the first Earth Faen Denn-Elec."

"What's going on?" Atemu mumbled, trying to drag together his flustered energy and pump it into his form. He felt dragged, broken, by the rough summons.

"I'm sorry Atemu," Amar apologised ever-green eyes gentle, "we had the Gate Keeper force your phase in. We need your help brother. You have to gather yourself."

"Atreyu Damestaire, third Faen of Earth, is missing." Seviticus explained briskly. "He hasn't phased out from his last crossing of the Veil four hours ago. We need to retrieve him. His star is fading, the Gate Keeper is losing his signal, and as we have no idea where Jenzar Fraveous is you need to act as his Champion Reaper in aiding us to find him before damage is done."

"Trey's missing?" Atemu mumbled.

The cold of it cut through him. Panic swelled him to alertness, returning function to his spine and activation to his core, his soul, which resumed pumping him with warrior's magic. It was an icy spray of an idea and the sombre expressions of Amar and Seviticus, both Champion Reapers, both with Faens of their own did nothing to soothe him.

"_Where?_" He ruffled rounding on Amar's hard set face between thick crimson curls. "Where was he lost?"

"A Transient Space," Amar explained, "we have to go there now and scour it."

"Then let's!" Atemu urged roughly.

Transient Spaces were In-Between Places. Gaps, passage ways, between different realms of the Supernatural or between one side of the Veil or the other and as such were pocket dimensions that could be enormous or closeted. They hurried and Atemu had little chance to ask or observe much through the haze of mounting anticipation.

Amar and Seviticus were both very proud creatures. They seemed almost parodies of each other. Amar's thick red curls hit between his shoulder blades, Seviticus locks were shades of emerald brushing his neck, much the same colour of Amar's eyes, while his own were dark and chocolaty. The pair of them were tall and imposing, as wiry and intrinsically strong as Atemu had come to expect of Champions. They held none of the fragile, delicate, nature of the Faens Atemu had glanced but they were more regal than bullish in their valiant gaits. They were the front line soldiers, the generals, the Knights, the Prince Charming's that men like Yami could never be and Reapers like Atemu were helpless to idolise.

This wasn't a matter of pageantry however. Earth had only three Faens to protect the normalcy of nine _billion_ souls. If something Atemu couldn't imagine had happened to Atreyu, without Jenzar's protection, the Veil could be in danger. Faens were powerful, souls did not die, but that didn't mean that order couldn't be upheaved. The Seers might make it impossible for Atreyu to cross back into the Natural World, back into his body, or else plunder his ever perpetuating energy core which was indeed his soul. Faen souls produced endless energy, magic, which gave them boundless capabilities but they were fragile to certain attacks and instabilities. Atemu knew few of the details but he knew the danger to general order was extreme. They couldn't lose a Faen any more than they could afford to lose a Champion like Jenzar for long.

"By the Keeper it's massive!" Seviticus swore fervently once their bypass from the Hive opened up onto the In-Between Space where Atreyu was to be found.

It was. The situation felt increasingly bleak under the enormity of the sky sprawled over Atemu. Starry night sky cut indigo patches through a blue day sky in a mishmash of textures over their head. Around them, from their vantage: vast jungle, towering Mesoamerican temples by Yami's reckoning and distant snow etched mountains interacted confused. The Space felt expansive and detailed. Atemu could vaguely feel the complexity of the energy trails running through this vast pocket of space where he was convinced two or more Supernatural realms intersected.

"Never mind that," Amar urged, "we start searching."

"How?" Atemu blanked horribly. "It's huge!"

"Leave me the jungle, Sev the temples, Atemu scour the mountains." How he could be so simply cut on it, so easily tear up this expanse, was very like Amar.

"There could be lower levels underground or more in the heavens," Seviticus mumbled darkly, "it could take us days."

"We don't have days, we have hours, Atreyu's star is fading so we begin." Amar ordered stoutly of the Champion. "Don't be a coward Sev. You've achieved more in worse. We're only wasting time here!"

"True," Seviticus consented in surrender, Amar seemed unlikely to listen to anything else. "I'll alert you if I discover anything."

"Go." The redhead snapped and driven on the Champion slipped, bounded, from the edge of the mountain fearlessly to slip off into the darkness of the foliage below. A hundred foot drop neither scared nor damaged a Champion. "You too Atemu."

"But-"

"We've no time for beginner's self-doubt." Amar snapped. "Jenzar and the other Champions are unavailable. _Go._"

"If I find something?" He fumbled.

"Call, I'll hear you," the Champion assured knowingly. "Don't do anything foolish. Be careful."

"Right!"

* * *

The snow didn't cling to him. Atemu didn't sink into it he bounded over it. It took magic to keep himself above its clutches just like it took magic to make himself move so fast, a procession of cursory leaps across the landscape, but it was unconscious and easy to move through his astral form without actual spells. Atemu's core was searing with anxiety. Rippling with nausea he would have rather faced a Seer than feel so useless fumbling over this landscape unsure how to proceed or what to seek. He was lost, childishly confused, thoughtless. He wasn't prepared for this.

Atemu's footing gave out during his landing, careless, and he tumbled across the thick blanket of snow onto his stomach slipping four or ten feet down the slope. Digging his boots into the plush he caught himself, the cold submerging up around him abruptly stripping him to frigid shivers. He forced himself back onto his feet, trudging, he should've thought to use magic to steady himself instinctively but he was being negligent.

He stilled, eyes scanning the vast empty slope. He had no concept of how he was to find Atreyu here. Where had Atreyu been going? What had been his purpose? I couldn't have been a hunt or Atemu would've been escorting him. The Gate Keeper wouldn't feel that Atreyu needed a constant novice body guard and now Atemu was beginning to question if he was any use at all to anyone. His fist hit the snow, ice scrapping his knuckles angrily and frustrated he fought back a howl.

He could be here for fruitless hours. He could miss something, some clue, that Jenzar or some other Champion would spot. He was a nuisance to Atreyu and now Amar and Seviticus trying to find the Faen he had been charged with protecting. It went dreadfully deeper than that though. If Yami hadn't published the _damn_ books, at least according to the figures of his dreams whether they be real or not, then Atreyu wouldn't need extra protection from enemies who now knew he was vulnerable. Whatever was going on between them, whatever aloofness on Atreyu's part, Atemu couldn't consort the image of Atreyu disappearing. It would be to kill childhood, imagination, fantasy… This was Atemu's fault…

Atemu was a successful Reaper. He had done so much these last four years, felt so competent, but as a Specialist he consistently failed to meet his obligations. He couldn't unlock the full memories of his past lives or the powers of his core. He couldn't protect a Fean, he couldn't be trusted to keep their secrets, and he couldn't even find the trail of some monster that might've spirited Atreyu away. He was useless.

He clutched himself, rippling with self-loathing, and was sure he would cry. Even that was shameful. Reapers did not give up and Atreyu was so hateful of the ridiculous impracticality of tears Atemu sunk further into warrior's regret. What should he do? How did he repent? He would never forgive himself if Atreyu was lost, if he had to explain himself to Jenzar when the rightful Champion finally emerged…

_Think!_ He urged himself scouring the stark page like expanse of the slope eyes hot and burning. There had to be a faster way of searching. There had to be more he could do.

Atreyu always knew what was wrong, always saw through illusion to truth, Atreyu always knew where the wound was…

It occurred to Atemu in his frustration that the trails of energy Atreyu heeded to learn the secrets of a realm were open to him too. If he listened well enough, found the signs, he could perhaps discover more. He tried to quell his pounding heart, throat thick, humbled by his own hatred as he shook into the cold. The sky was painfully blue over him and pressing his lids shut he tried to push his anxiety into a box. He tried to weaponize it.

"Oh please…" he whispered. "Please Trey…Where are you? _Please_…"

He shook, choking over himself, pressing harder at the desperation of the thoughts. Slipping into Yami.

"Where are you? _God,_ please Trey, tell me where you are?" He begged. It was futile he was convinced. "I'm sorry… I'm _so_ sorry… this is all my fault…"

He inhaled sharply, rattled, clutching his fists as he gazed into the darkness of his own lids.

The wound in his chest which was his overwrought heart seemed to freeze him when his shaking became too great and exhaling Atemu found-

"_God!_"

His eyes tore open, spluttering, and Atemu was aware of it: the currents of magic around him. They were exposed, stripped back like exposed circuitry, fading in and out of focus as he wrought himself to see them in the air. He twisted, knees deep in the snow, and knew he could feel Atreyu's sweet, tender, pulse somewhere nearby. He could half hear it on the wind, distant but fluting. Like a pipe the sound was high and thin breaking but continuous as was the thrum of Atreyu's warmth somewhere reachable.

Atemu fumbled. He was sure it was coming from deeper beneath his feet. Where? In the mountain he realized! Digging on his hands and knees he fumbled hopelessly back up the slope the summit. There must be a way into the mountain! He was so unthinking that his magic forced him back up above the encapsulating snow so he could run only by sheer force of will which drove him on.

He found it before he was really aware he was running through the craggy slit in the face of the mountain. It was pitch dark, heat intensifying in the air, but Atemu's magic driven to keep running gave him enough light to see where he was going or perhaps it was Atreyu's magic? Atemu could hear it, could feel it, coursing above his own panting, above his throbbing heartbeat, above all else.

The tunnels were steep, cut roughly into the mountain, catacomb like products of some foul combination of beasts Atemu sensed from their imprints in the constructions. The deeper he ran the more the outside world sunk away as he dove into the depths of gloomy hell.

"_Hahahahah!_"

It was a lilting, over joyed, sound that wafted up through the tunnels as they split open to become columned walkways within a vast in chasm. Atemu couldn't bring himself to stop running, Atreyu's energy was strong here, the flute was loud in his ears, his heart was tight.

"They're real!" The voice cried again. "I didn't think they were real!"

Atemu was closer. Light was apparent now, wafting out between the columns and across the various levels he could see along the walls of the circular interior of the mountain. Atemu was forced to halt, wrenched himself to stop, to stop breathing, and move swiftly but silently crouching in the half cast shadows.

"A _Faen_…" the second voice was enamoured at the prospect. It was a kind of childish fancy that over took it with pleasure. "I thought they were just myths..."

"What a day!" The first voice cooed ecstatically as Atemu rounded the bend from the darkness into the light of this level.

He fell back, obscured, and the beings failed to notice his misstep in their euphoria. There were only two of them. Black skinned, bony, with beaming smiles as between them they held Atreyu in what seemed to Atemu to be an atrium. The structure was inbuilt, well paved, a rectangular pool perhaps waist deep but Atemu doubted it was filled with water of a natural sort.

One creature held Atreyu under the armpits with its wiry hands while the other held his legs in one arm pressed to its waist. Between them Atreyu sagged, eyes slit like and barely conscious, his lower torso and hips just submerged beneath the surface of the pool. The water was glowing over his navel, writhing with worm like strands of glorious light that thickened and crystallised.

Atemu felt like to wretch.

One creature, the one with its back to Atem, holding Atreyu's legs hefted the crystalline ball newly formed from the water and held it pulsating in its fingers.

"Endless self-perpetuating magic!" It purred. "A living star!"

They were draining him, Atemu fathomed, something which they could never achieve given how Atreyu's core would never give out creating new magic but something which, if the Faen was left here, could weaken him to the point of imprisonment for centuries.

It was sickening, sacrilegious, defiling in the worst possible way. Atemu had images of parasites eating corpses and likened them to these disrespectful, insidious, monstrosities who at once filled him with rage. How dare they? They were so overjoyed with their catch, making Atreyu a captured mermaid, a gutted fish that Atemu was sure he'd burst with hatred.

"_SMITE!_" It came rippling out of Atemu before he'd fully exposed himself, in a voice that hardly seemed his own, and shrieking the creatures dropped Atreyu into the pool and scrambled under the holy fire which seared them.

Atemu was pulsating with anger when bounded over the edge of the pavement, sloshing into the pool, throwing himself in arms and all without any thoughtful concern for the effect the cursed water might have on him. His arms fastened round Atreyu, clutching the petite form to his chest, heaving his head back above the surface. The Faen moaned, lulling against him, fingers struggling to weakly grope at him.

"Atemu…" He whispered, deathly quiet, sounding almost fevered and despite the pull that seemed quicksand like through Atemu's legs he struggled to drag them back to the edge of the pool.

It was merciful that it was not any deeper or Atemu wouldn't have had the strength to heave Atreyu gingerly over the paved side and lay him soaking on the tiles, sprawled panting, as Atemu hefted himself back up onto solid ground. He fell to his hands and knees, drained no doubt from the same energy sapping pull of the enchanted water.

"Temu…" Atreyu sighed, fingers extending, he was weak but he found enough power to stretch his quaking fingers over Atemu's face.

"I'm here," Atemu swore reverently, forcing himself to lean into one arm as he pressed Atreyu's palm to his lips with his own and kissed it desperately. "You're safe."

"Mar…" He groaned and still heaving Atemu became very aware of the compounding shrieking that was filling the chasm.

The creatures who'd stolen Atreyu were no doubt seared to death, crumbled to ash under Atemu's righteous fury, but their fellows had heard the alarm and were now shrieking amongst the levels. There must've been thousands of them given the intense layers of the echo and weak as he was Atemu was well aware he couldn't fight all of them off.

"Mar…" Atreyu insisted, hair clinging wetly to his face, too weak to move as his arm sagged in Atemu's clasp.

"Right," Atemu blinked haggardly. They needed Amar and Seviticus. They needed allies. It was a brilliant idea but Atemu hardly noticed it when he cried low but pointedly: "_AMAR SEIRRAMOURA_"

The name had become a spell, tied irrevocably to the Champion, and he became aware that this was what Amar must've meant by calling on him. His magic had done most of the work by instinct and weak as he was Atemu's will was still desperately charged to imbue the spell with intention.

The air rippled, lighting crackled from nothingness, and Amar lurched into being. He pivoted, a little shaken, but visibly recovered with a Champion's experience. Whistling through his lips Amar strode to them, hooked his arms under Atreyu and effortlessly lifted the Faen up to his chest cradling the star like a bride.

Seviticus Prodius had heard the summon as well evidently given how, not a moment too soon, he was above Atemu hefting the Reaper onto his feet throwing Atemu's arm over his shoulder to hold him upright.

"They are many of them," Seviticus declared to Amar, "the mountain's writhing with infestation."

"It's not our place to destroy them." The vermillion warrior grumbled unhappily. "It'll cause a festering wound if we wipe them all out. We should retreat. We have Atreyu."

"Then we leave," the Champion concurred clutching Atemu close like a brother when the Reaper could not stand himself, "I'll meet you at the Hive."

"Travel safe!" Amar ordered rippling right back out of being.

* * *

1 Oh yes, you got kisses this chapter~ Soak em up!

2 So Kaiba's evidently fascinated with Yugi's love life. Personally I love writing Kaiba. Now what Kaiba knows and if he knows everything that's going on is something for you lovelies to consider.

3 Mokuba's a teenager in this. Basically just because if Yugi and Kaiba are out of high school then he'd be a little older than he is in the series.

4 What? Yami fainted? Oh no! What does it mean? Is he totally losing it or is this the disastrous nail in the coffin on the matter of the realness of his dreams?

5 Like I hinted to one reviewer last time: there are only _three_ Faens living on Earth (which is part of what makes it easy for them not to know very much about each other for security reasons). Those Faens again are: Denn-Elec Flennous (Champion- Amar Seirramoura), Vegas Helldreem (Champion- Seviticus Prodius) and our favorite Atreyu Damestaire (Champion- Jenzar Fraveous). Just something for you theorising to consider because I promise there are _only_ three Faens.

6 Worth noting perhaps is that Yami is feeling more like Atemu and Atemu at times is feeling more like Yami. They are technically the same person but they're overlapping much more now. Alter-ego and Ego condensing go!


	6. Devil at the Crossroads

So we tie off Atemu's astral adventure and begin a new one~

* * *

Chapter 6: _Devil at the Crossroads_

Seviticus respectfully lowered Atemu into a Hive wall in the inner sanctums when they Phased back to the Reapers' home. Atemu shook in his exhale and resting his hand on his shoulder Seviticus took a place on his knees beside the younger Reaper.

"Well done brother," he praised, "we can relax again with a new victory. You should go home. We stole you from the Natural World at a most inconvenient time I'm sure."

"Atreyu," Atemu groaned, "I want to wait till he's here."

"You are made of good mettle." The Champion chuckled. "Then I will stay with you till then. Don't concern yourself too greatly. Amar will take only the greatest care to bring him home."

"I know," he sighed mildly comforted by the thought, "they're old friends aren't they?"

"Yes," Seviticus assured him, "Amar and Atreyu had known each other since the dawn of time. They may not be partnered but they are enduring companions. If ever there was a Champion I would trust my Faen with it would be brothers Jenzar or Amar."

"You knew Jenzar too?" Atemu murmured mutely. "What was he like?"

"He was and is a hero." The Champion answered. "He said he would be the first one out and the last one back at the call. A great brother: steadfast, dependable, loving, courageous and virtuous. There's none finer and few as legendary. He and Atreyu were among the first to pair at the beginning of the universe. They held great sway in Sanctuary and I have always admired their work when we are stationed on planets together. I'm sure you'll meet him one day. You'll be great allies."

"How can you tell?"

"You're just the sort of soul he respects," Seviticus smiled, "he'll be eternally grateful to you for protecting Atreyu so well."

"I haven't done well," Atemu groaned. "I'm a miserable excuse for a Specialist."

"It's a difficult burden." The Champion soothed patting his shoulder. "You found him though, before Amar or I, and you saved him by throwing yourself into combat. You're learning the most challenging lesson, that is, to see through illusions to the true nature of things. You're a talented Reaper. I was there when you warned us all of the Seer uprising a year ago and helped us quell it. You ought to give yourself more credit."

"Thank you." Atemu muttered but bringing his knees to his chest he felt little joy at the prospect.

"Atemu?"

He perked. If his energy had been greater he would've lurched to his feet at Amar's arrival but found himself unable to do more than glance keenly to the red head.

"He would not leave till we were aware you'd returned safely." Seviticus chortled brushing off his knees to stand tall, proud, once more.

"Thank you Sev," the red head sighed patting the Champion across the broad shoulder as he passed, "it was glorious to see you again."

"It's my pleasure to serve beside you Amar," he answered smoothly but sincerely, "we must all help each other on Earth while we search for Jenzar. Take care of yourself and send your Faen Denn-Elec Flennous my esteem."

"And give Vegas Helldreem mine," Amar wished generously as they parted stride and Seviticus slipped into the tunnels from view.

"Is Trey well?" Atemu muttered eagerly as Amar sighed and drew his attention back to him.

"He phased out to rest in his body back in the Natural World." The Champion answered. "No lasting damage was done. His core will replenish his strength in a matter of hours. He'll be safe and well and glorious as ever in no time Atemu you need not fear."

"I do though." He murmured. "Why was he there anyway? What happened?"

"As far as the Gate Keeper tells me Atreyu was visiting a Ferry Man. It was a social call Atemu nothing he needed you for. He was ambushed in that Transient Space by dumb luck coming back." Amar hunched before him sombrely as if Atemu was a small child. "All's well."

"What's a Ferry Man?" Atemu frowned.

"Our cousins," Amar answered. "They too are children of the Gate Keeper and answer to him. They order movement between the Veil in a very different way. Ferry Men are like reverse Champions. They partner in the Natural World with Children of Lilith who are siblings of the Seers. The Children of Lilith are souls made from pieces of chaos whom, in the Natural World, can wreck destruction unless a Ferry Men is there to keep them from throwing things into dismay. It's a thankless job. Ferry Men often love their charges as Champions love their Feans but the Children of Lilith can only be contained by being directed to hurt Ferry Men instead of themselves or other souls. Ferry Men come to the Supernatural side of the Veil to visit Grieving Temples where they can mourn their lot. Atreyu is close with one of them currently and was observing him during the mourning ritual to gauge his health."

Atemu eased. What a miserably profession for a being to live trapped in. To be a soul reincarnated endlessly to endure such torment was a dreadful concept to fashion. Amar seemed to appreciate the charitable nature of Atemu's pity and nodded in condolence.

"It's difficult," he agreed to Atemu's silence, "but it's not for us to make trouble in. You must go home Atemu. Atreyu left exhausted. You've done your duty."

"I feel like I've failed."

"No," Amar promised, planting his hand upon the Reaper's tender neck. "These things happen. It's the nature of serendipity. It's why Atreyu has a Reaper in the first place. So alleviate yourself of any guilt and rest for a job well done."

"Would you have let Denn-Elec get ambushed?" Atemu rued.

"I would not disappear like Jenzar and leave someone else to act on my behalf." Amar shrugged almost resentfully. "Please Atemu, we'll talk more tonight. I think it's for the best we meet again. You need to understand a few things for your own safety but you've done very well considering the circumstances."

"Alright," he finally conceded, defeated as he was Atemu couldn't deny he would eventually need to return to the Natural World. "I'll speak with you tonight?"

"Indeed you will." Amar promised.

"Thank you brother."

"Anytime."

* * *

Yami's head was throbbing. He managed only barely to make his way onto his stomach then onto shaking forearms. If the couch had not been so nearby Yami was sure he never would've made it to the furniture he dragged himself up onto. The nausea had faded but his head throbbed with a pounding migraine, his limbs stiff and aching. He breathed deep, eyes shut, and took his time to very carefully regard the lounge room.

It must've been early afternoon. It had been ten, maybe a little earlier, when Yami had been on the phone with his publisher. The sky was beginning to darken outside his curtains however and when he leant into his elbows Yami could see how the coffee had dried into the carpet round the remains of his mug.

This was bad…

* * *

It took a great number of haggard lies to assuage his publisher after their call had unceremoniously ended. Yami was fortunate, he felt, that Coco decided his lap was an appropriate spot to nap during the apologetic call or the author was convinced he would shake off the end of the couch.

That settled Yami was stiff with indecision. He should call someone for help, to tell them, but he… it was too frightfully bizarre. Yami wanted to fix it himself. It was all well and good when mysterious things happened to Yugi but he was still mildly concerned he was actually losing his mind to some cancerous brain tumour. What if, he asked himself again, his dreams were real? If he and Yugi had different vantage points on the same Supernatural universe Yami had been writing about all these years? What would that mean for him?

Well it would mean he was a traitor for one and in danger from all number of monsters he would know were real. It would mean that, by telling the whole world, he had endangered and insulted all number of his allies on both sides of the Veil. It would mean there was a real Atreyu somewhere, perfect, and heartbroken.

Yet, it would mean by extension that Yami had a grand purpose. It would mean Yami was totally Atemu. It would mean he had done all those brave things under the confidence of a dream mentality. It would mean he was part of a proud history and community that stretched through the ages. It would mean he had real past lives and powers to unlock. It meant potential. It meant something Yugi could be proud of. Yugi would believe him, Yami was sure, Yugi would understand and the mutuality of it would give them more to share.

Though, there was always that niggling self-doubt that ate at him. Yami was going mad. Maybe he was breaking up into fragments for no discernible real life reason. Maybe he was losing his grip on the tangible. Maybe he was an egotist tempted by the play pretend heroics.

Yami couldn't dive too deep into the thoughts as exhausted as he was. He fought through it instead blanketing the ideas at the back of his mind to pressure his stiff body to perform the practicalities: shower, dinner, act normal.

He didn't want to sleep but he was, he couldn't deny, still wrecked. His mattress called to him in a way that was both eerie and tempting. Yet, if the dreams were real, then he had a duty as a Reaper to meet with Amar. Amar who might be real, a real friend, to Yami who might indeed be a real hero and traitor…

Lord what if he had passed out behind the wheel today? Or crossing the street? Or in some other disastrous situation that didn't involve motor vehicles (which seemed to be the only disaster his haggard imagination could supply at the current point in time)?

God, Yami couldn't fathom totally attaching his identity with Atemu…

There was a _bang-thump_ that rattled his windows as the sound intermingled with a tangible dry _crack_.

He jumped.

The window, most immediately before him, to the dark side walk outside the front of the house had just been assaulted. The crack searing a seam down it was a nasty product of some foul deed and cautious Yami stumbled up to inspect it from where he had been buried in thought with his elbows on his knees like a man hunched in prayer.

There were…

_People_ outside his house…

He couldn't put his finger down on a more exact adjective. They weren't punks, adolescents, no they were adults. Indeed they looked more like civil neighbours the pair of them. Yet they unnerved him staring with bright upturned smiles through his now damaged window. They had an appearance of misdeed, a lack of care about their generally ruffled composition, hair mused, clothes rumpled, eyes very bright and deep under the lamp light.

One might have very well been a woman, the other a man, but they were too scruffy. The man made a little gesture to Yami like a milkman in an old public service announcement from the fifties as if he were tipping his hat. They woman pressed against him, arms through his, and they treaded off along their merry way again leaning into each other to straighten their postures.

The woman said something, leaning up into the man, about five feet away as they strolled and the pair of them gave whooping cackles like hyenas. High, uncomfortable, voices worked through the air ways to Yami's ear drums and distinctly unnerved he pulled the curtains tight.

There was a long, very cold, moment in the house as he inhaled sharply to himself.

_The emails! _

His mind was shambled, scrambled, but that was the first thing which floated sickly to the surface of his focus. Those emails, for the fan claiming to be Atreyu, maybe…? Yami was scared for himself. He had to throw a line to the universe somehow, find out what was going on, be active and in some small way ask for help.

* * *

_Please, if this really is Atreyu, I need your help. I think something, maybe Seers, have found my trail. I think they know where I live. I don't know what to do._

* * *

Atemu had never phased in twice in such a short period of time but he was quite comforted to find Amar waiting for him in the enclosed, secure, temple of the Hive that was their astral home. The Champion gestured for him to follow languidly and straying up the earthen ramps led them to a sunny alcove, because the sun always seemed to be awake here, where they leant their backs into the cool walls.

"We need to talk." Amar prefaced. "You're young Atemu. I think there are a few things about Atreyu you need to understand."

"You're right." Atemu couldn't argue that. There was the weight of a million things he didn't understand hanging over him now.

"The Gate Keeper doesn't want you knowing anything much right now, after you published those books, but I would never forgive myself if I didn't caution you." He sighed and Atemu's stomach curled painfully at their mention. They shamed him. "Listen, that first life which lasted for centuries, when all this was set in place things were very different for Champions and Faens. We didn't exist here in the Hive like other Reapers. We lived in an In Between Space where we built ourselves a home. Like the Watchers built Atlantis the Faens had a city of their own we called _Sanctuary_."

Atemu frowned.

"I've never heard of it." He confessed. No, wait… Seviticus had mentioned that word hadn't he? Atemu just hadn't been paying attention.

"It's a last great secret. Every Faen and their Champion lived there for decades." Amar recollected gently. "We were all very intimately linked. It was a magnificent place to be. We were all so very in love, so very happy, and so utterly peaceful. When you have the kind of magic the Faens have at their disposal, to create and heal, combined with Champion Reapers so contented there's no need for strife or nastiness. Sanctuary was a paradise. Jenzar, Denn-Elec, Atreyu and I were especially close during that time."

"You all met then," Atemu supposed, when the original bonds were formed. Still it was an odd concept to think that the Faens had known each other. Especially given now they had to have no knowledge of each other outside the bare minimum for the sake of safety now (a secrecy which Yami might've devastated for the three hiding on Earth).

"We were more than allies, you must understand, we were a family." Amar stressed in reverent nostalgia. "We lived under Third Star, the mother and Supervisor of the Faens, in Sanctuary and it wasn't uncommon for the Faens to make families in such a way. There wasn't gender or children or real time or death until the second life. So we were as much bonded as people could be. I loved all three of them intensely and I still do."

"Why would Faens leave then?" He whispered. "If Sanctuary was paradise why leave? The Watchers had to be dragged out of Atlantis."

"Faens are curious, Reapers adventurous, and we both share a very loving sense of purpose. When the Gate Keeper and Third Star took on protection of the Veil, conscripting all their children to its service, we didn't shy away from the call. We were proud." The Champion seemed very torn at the beauty and tragedy of the memory. "We celebrated in Sanctuary for days. I don't know exactly how long. We cried, we kissed, we understood that once we took on the vow of secrecy and went to work the Faens wouldn't see each other or Third Star, their mother, until Doomsday and that some of we Champions would bear the same burden. It stripped our families to separate ends of a vast new universe."

"It sounds dreadful…"

"It was," Amar promised, "but we did it because we knew someone had to. We were filled with love and charity and hope but, more than that, because we had each other. I have Denn with me now, forever, and Jenzar knew that he would always have Atreyu beside him. That was our promise to make it bearable as well as to make us all unstoppable challenges for the Seers. Our partners are our one constant in an ever changing eternity that we, unlike some soul types, remember each lifetime in vast detail."

"I don't understand why you're telling me this." Atemu confessed shamefully. The more they continued, the greater his guilt amassed, the more extreme his shame towards Yami, his current incarnation or avatar became.

"Atemu, when I'm in the Natural World, in my current body I'm not as stable or as at peace as I am here. I'm subject to hormones, culture, weaknesses of youth and all manner of factors which can't touch me here when I astral project. Atreyu is the same. We all are. Even the kindest Faen has been a dictator or a serial rapist in one life or another." He paused carefully. "What I need you to understand is that you need to be cautious, not of the Seers, but of Atreyu right now. He's cares for you deeply, we both do, but he's not his majestic self or at least not as he should be. Without Jenzar this life is unbearably painful for him and with the strain your books have placed on the day to day life of his incarnation he's all the more volatile."

"You think he'd hurt me?" Atemu blinked bemusedly.

"Not Atreyu but his current incarnation might be inclined to it." Amar warned. "I'm sure Atreyu himself has cautioned you about his feelings. I'm sure he's warned you. He's kind like that. The thing is Atemu that neither Atreyu nor I nor Cobalt, who's taking to trailing you, know exactly what Atreyu might be capable of at the moment."

"He wouldn't." Atemu insisted stubbornly.

"Atemu that's what you don't appreciate." The Champion sighed. "This absence of Jenzar hasn't just been for a few years or a few decades. That would be normal as part of resettling into a new reincarnation. We haven't been able to Jenzar Fraveous for _four hundred years_."

"What…?" He was positive then that his stomach had fallen through the floor in horror.

"That's why the Gate Keeper is so desperate, that's why Atreyu is mad with grief and worry, no Champion's ever been missing that long." Amar stressed poignantly. "Atreyu's going out of his mind by now."

"How does that happen?" Atemu baulked. "Where is he? Where on Earth does a Champion hide? Doesn't he know Atreyu needs him?"

"Of course he does," Amar snapped. "He may have been a philosopher much of his time but he would never abandon Atreyu. He couldn't even if he wanted to. Third Star and the Gate Keeper specifically reincarnate Champions and Faens in such a way that they're irrevocably bound to meet in every lifetime. That's the problem here Atemu. Jenzar would only be gone this long if something had happened to him, if someone had trapped him or injured him or his soul had gotten lost in some Transient Space. Something serious has happened to him and we have no idea what that is. It's terrifying. For all we know the Seers have a new weapon against us. For all we know they've finally found a way to destroy energy, souls, matter.

Atreyu has to deal with that. Now your books as well, which have made this situation all the more dangerous, and for all I know his current incarnation is much more affected and _much_more dangerous."

Everything fell very neatly into place inside Atemu. His grief, his guilt, his horror and his understanding overlapped and intermingled in a perfect contingency that was devastating. The insult he'd lodged against the Reaper Core was much more serious than he had fathomed. He had told all their enemies, not just the Seers, about this exodus of a Champion, told them which planet his lonely Faen was trapped unguarded on, expelled the potential of their vulnerability…

More than that Atreyu had warned him, both during Yami's dreams and by emailing the author, that he was being forced to take action.

Atreyu's incarnation was _furious_ at him somewhere.

What way would Atreyu think to punish in the Natural World? What were the options? Killing him seemed too brutal for the Faen but souls could be reincarnated. What would it matter between two friends if you killed each other once or twice to settle a dispute and enforce silence back over the ranks? Someone probably had already put that forward as an option for Yami's fate. After all the Reaper Core didn't typically discipline for trespasses in the Natural World unless they were sever. Atreyu's current life could attempt most things and only fear reprise from the human police. He had innumerable choices. Would Atreyu ruin his more material aspects: his career, his fame, his reputation? Would Atreyu, maybe, if he was Yugi perhaps…?

"Oh God," he stumbled weakly. The sky was falling. Amar let him reel; let him feel the weight of the burden, all on his own.

"Hell hath no fury like a Faen scored Atemu." He cautioned warily. "I love Atreyu but you need to know. You need to be careful. Cobalt has been watching you, I've caught him, and he'd only do that if something special is going on. I doubt your pairing with Atreyu as his temporary body guard is the sole cause of it. He's been following Atreyu for a while now but he's much more focused on you than he should be. All that says to me is that something has started you should be aware of."

"God…god…" Atemu sighed miserably as Yami panicked with him.

"I'll help you if I can brother," the Champion swore, "and Atreyu is merciful by nature but for now you need to know what threats are imposed around you. You need to be aware. This isn't a disaster Atemu this is how we _prevent_it. That's why I've warned you. We can weather this, avoid it, I just want you to appreciate the severity. Now is not the time to panic."

"If not now then when?" He scoffed. "I've endangered the entire Veil, Earth, the Reapers, and myself! I've hopelessly stirred a Faen to vengeance! What more is there to panic over?"

"When the sky really falls, then we panic," Amar answered curtly. "Not a moment before then. You lose out now before the fat lady sings and you may as well be doomed. You've got to hold your ground Atemu. Work with me. Don't run away."

"Then what do I do?"

"Be cautious, be savvy, be aware." Amar reiterated the basics Yami had never fully appreciated when he was awake. "Not just here but when you're phased out. Talk to me, call me, and I'll come. Most of all _don't panic_."

Easier said than done was the obvious cliché.

* * *

Yami had never taken a dream as seriously as he did that rather sombre picture from Amar. He tried to draw upon the pool of positives. If this doomsday sense pounding down on him was real then there were things Yami could do. If was true he was a tired and proved hero with skills. He could repent. He could find Atreyu and make things right. Amar was a real ally who would support him.

Despite all that however the new dawn bought very little hope and very little relief. He was drained. Not physically but emotionally by the turbulence of the last day. He was torn, stupidly, between believing himself and panicking or denying it as fantasy a little longer. That was the very root of the problem.

His prerequisite check of the house that morning brought nothing more than bad news either. The windows were intact but his chances of appealing to an informant for help were crushed when the reply email read:

_Welcome to my life.  
Trey._

That was all his inbox had received in the night from what may very well have been the real, current, reincarnation of Atreyu Damestaire who was apparently insensitive to his plight or at the least apathetic. He had warned Atemu _and_ Yami and now it appeared his sympathies had been exhausted before Yami had realized the implications of their tenuous power over his life.

In a way, crumbled at the kitchen counter, buried in his forearms Yami could hardly contemplate his third book while instantaneously it was all he could occupy his mind with. Now it felt real.

Yami was pathetic. Even the shrill ring of the doorbell off put him.

"Hey!" Yugi beamed blustering into view as Yami reluctantly spread the door open to him. Flushed under the morning sun, arms overflowing with a haphazard tangle of tumbling flowers, the young man was as enchanting as Yami had ever seen him.

"Hey," he croaked lilting into his laugh, "where'd you get those?"

"Picked them on the way here," Yugi grinned to the flowers he cradled lovingly. "If they're on the side walk or over a fence they're free game."

"Typical." He sighed leaning into the frame. "What are you doing here?"

"Thought I'd pop in," he shrugged but his radiance retracted mildly. "Hey, are you okay? You look wrecked."

"I had a horrible night," Yami admitted, hesitant only to get Yugi involved in what may at best be his mental breakdown and at worst a supernatural war. "I almost called you but I crashed. You want to come in?"

"You kidding?" Yugi scoffed sweeping past him into the house. "You aren't getting rid of me now."

The young man had never entered Yami's house. The fact he crossed the threshold, only after Yami's express permission unsurprisingly, was momentous to the author. It was a juxtaposition of peculiar elements to see Yugi so effortless make himself at home in Yami's kitchen spreading his bounty over the island counter. It was soothing to have Yugi here. Yami could feel some of his fear, his madness, alleviating in the freshness of Yugi's presence which brought a cool breeze into his dank inhospitable home. It was remedial immediately upon his mood and he wished, acutely, that he had summoned the sweet creature to his side earlier.

"So what happened?" Yugi demanded curtly.

He flittered about the kitchen as he spoke. When he began he had laid the flowers on the counter then turned to open the window and in the process stacked two or three of the dishes in Yami's sink out of the way. It was so homely to him to observe. Yami had never seen anyone make themself so immediately comfortable, motherly, in a stranger's house. There was an innate social boundary of propriety Yugi seemed utterly, innocently, unaware of as he bypassed it.

"Terrible dreams the last few nights." He diagnosed miserably as he leant back into the opposing side of the counter watching the little fairy. "Then last night some _psychos_threw something at my window. It was creepy and now… I just feel gross… it's like the house isn't safe anymore."

"Good thing I'm here then," Yugi assuaged easily, as if it were a simple everyday aliment Yami had recounted for him.

"Yeah?" Yami blinked.

"Oh yeah, easy," he waved flippantly. "We'll take the house back and make it hallowed ground in no time. I'll make you a protection box."

"Protection box?" He paused. "It's not a hassle is it?"

"No way," Yugi laughed, "I've got everything on me half the time. I make them for Ryou and Kaiba all the time. You have a little glass bottle or a little tin or something you don't mind ruining?"

"Um… I think…" Yami mumbled sliding round the counter, compelled by Yugi's instruction to forage under the sink. "How about plastic?"

"Works better if it's something more natural," the young man retorted.

"Old sugar tin?"

"That'll be perfect." Yugi purred taking it briskly from Yami's fingers as he presented it.

Like a mother gathered round her children to bake Yugi heaved his bag onto the counter with unconsciously meticulous gestures. He heaved tradition, familiarity, with the process and stumbling exhausted into a stupor Yami came to stand beside him as he hummed. All at once Yugi resume speaking to Yami, as he made order out of the counter, in that same motherly voice of knowing, experienced, instruction.

"I used to do these all the time in High School when I felt unsafe." He explained. "It keeps all sorts of bad things, nasties, out of the house. Physical or not. See, way I see it, there's two types of magic: unconscious and conscious magic. Unconscious magic is really strong and it's what fucks people over in horror movies. If you don't feel safe in your house, if you think ghosts or demons can get in, you basically open a door for them. Conscious magic is similar. It's like in churches when all these people pray to something, believe in something, put their focus into something and it fills that place with an energy you can feel which is powerful. Ever notice how libraries and churches never feel empty? How they always make you shut up?"

Yami nodded dumbly.

"This," Yugi gestured to the little tin, "is a combination of unconscious and conscious magic. We're going to _consciously _sanctify your home which is going to _subconsciously_make you feel safer. That combination creates a double seal but it only works if you believe in it okay?"

"Okay," he coughed to the little one's soft smile. "Can I make these?"

"So long as you pump your energy to them, believe in them, you bet your cotton socks you can." He smiled. "Okay, so, we're working in symbols here."

He dipped his hand through the pockets of his bag and came back with a little plastic bag of supplies.

"Rock salt purifies," he explained tipping a handful in, "Iron wards of spirits, Silver's good against demons, water purifies everything…" a quick trip to the tap. "You have a…?"

Yugi twisted and Yami stood stiff to attention as he glanced.

"I'm going to need a little bit of food, something homemade or unprocessed, so we can make an offering to whoever looks after you and I'm going to need something of yours that's solid to sort of symbolise you and that this is _your_ house."

"Oh," Yami fumbled, "um… one sec, I've got an old pin from high school upstairs, um…there should be something in the fridge if you want to…?"

"Yep, on it," Yugi flittered easily.

When they came back Yami felt like a child watching his family assemble the feast on Christmas Eve. There was something so deliciously old fashioned about the sensual faith Yugi so strongly embodied. He tipped their things into the tin and began picking out flowers to stuff into it.

"Something to give it juice," he explained, moving right along. "You can keep the iron, the silver and the pin in there but you've got to change the rest over every few months. Every few weeks if it's getting a lot of use."

"How will I know?"

"Take a peek." Yugi shrugged bluntly. "If everything looks like death in there you've been over working it. Now," he dug back into his bag drawing back a pocket knife, "got to make a sacrifice. Got to show the universe and all its nasties that you're claiming this place and you'll fight for it and they better not mess with you. Got to show whoever looks after you that you respect them too. Make a covenant."

"I have to…?" He gestured to the little blade and cringing watched Yugi nick at his own thumb squeezing a thick, syrupy, drop of crimson into the pot with his opposing index finger and thumb.

"I'll do it this time. Girls get to cheat and use menstrual blood. Sacrifice fertility." Yugi chuckled at his squeamishness sealing the tin tightly. "Now…"

"Now?" Yami prompted.

"We put this somewhere safe," he gestured ceremoniously, "right after we walk it through the house. Get its fingers in every room and show it the dimensions of the space."

"Should I…?"

"I'm not rifling through your bedroom." Yugi laughed. "Go on. I'll put the flowers in some water. What's left of them at any rate."

Yami found himself laughing, lightened, as he accepted the petite tin. It was so simple but it felt so heavy with archaic implication in his fingers.

* * *

When he returned through the lounge to place the little box on the mantle of the plastered up fire place above his desk Yugi was tapping up the crack in his window. Everything was infinitely better somehow after the gesture. Yugi's softened knowledge appropriated into slick practicality was soothing on his frazzled nerves. Yugi was quite convinced his problems were a simple matter to solve and, as Yami took him for the expert, it calmed him impossibly.

"Thank you," he professed slipping his arms generously round the young man's waist as Yugi came down from his tip toes at the window and pivoted into his arms. "It seems so silly but I feel better."

"Not silly if it makes you feel better," Yugi smiled, blissfully forgiving of Yami's unthinking insult to his practices.

"You're right." He agreed gesturing cordially to the couch. An invitation Yugi took by nestling down into the pillows, glancing to him expectantly, prompting Yami to throw his arm round the petite shoulders and sink into the sofa. "I'm so glad you came over. I've been a mess all morning."

"Been there, lived through that," Yugi assured him sincerely. "You get a club jacket at the end."

"Is it well made?"

"Korean," the smaller sighed miserably spreading his hand before him, "says: _Fucking Thanks Universe_on the back."

"Joy." Yami laughed revelling in the aloof sarcasm.

"Yeah," Yugi chuckled, "sometimes I wish I'd just gone to Hogwarts, ya know? Their idea of magic had way more pluses."

"But less gay sex," he quirked.

"There is that." The smaller consented to serious consideration. The moment broke water however and Yugi laughed. "It's fine though. You get used to periodically being scared out of your wits."

"Don't tell me that." Yami groaned. "I don't want to know that. I mean… what the hell are you supposed to do if demons or whatever get bodies? Are people? Or _in_people? Or can physically hurt you?"

"_Pfft_," Yugi chortled languidly into his arms, "that's easy. If they've got bodies you can punch them in the nads. Bodies are a weakness. Worry about what you can't see. You can heal your body, your body is temporary, it's when something hurts your soul and your heart you should be worried."

"I don't know," he sighed, "bodies' feel pain."

"Not for long." The smaller insisted knowingly. "That's the hard thing to learn though: not to be afraid of physical pain, not to be afraid in general of facing things or yourself. Confidence and fearlessness count for everything in the end but even if you believe in reincarnation like I do it's still hard not to be afraid of death. Life's a struggle."

"I swear I could get dreadfully depressed at this rate."

"Life's also awesome." Yugi added responsively. "There's sex and chocolate, bad TV, brilliant comedians and someone else is always worse off than you. It's just perspective. You've got a millennium of chances to do things and try things and learn. Reincarnation can be kinda sucky but it's a great deal."

"You need to a write a self-help book."

"Thought about it."

"What's holding you back?"

"Procrastination is more timeless than taxes and as certain as death." Yugi replied lazily. "What's holding your book back?"

"This shit." Yami snorted. "That and I'm too busy falling madly in love with you."

Yugi smiled satisfactorily but even in Yami's arms made no motion to curl up into a kiss. He leant into him, drawing his legs up onto the couch, slumped his head onto the older man's shoulder and became very small instead.

"I think I'm falling in love with you too." Yugi confessed quietly, eventually, into the afternoon warmth burying against him.

"Now _that's_ scary." He smiled down to the creature, enfolding Yugi as best the couch would allow and smile struggling curiously Yugi planted his chin on Yami's shoulder to graze the window with his gaze.

"I better go," the young man mumbled eventually, languid in Yami's arms.

"You don't seem to me moving," he teased.

"Stop being so comfy," Yugi ordered, playfully begrudging.

"You first."

Yugi thrust his tongue out in response.

* * *

Atemu had not been so painfully nervous in what felt like years. The exhilaration of the hunt as he phased in, the jumble of Yami's ponderings, memories of Yugi, and concerns of Atreyu all weighed upon him as he found himself fact to face with the seamed steel of elevator doors.

"We're going down." Atreyu elaborated beside him in greeting before the Reaper was even really aware of him.

Atemu prickled, anxious, and found the Faen. Atreyu's smile was tinder warm this evening, glowing softly, that peculiar alchemy of love and sorrow playing through his eyes as he regarded the Reaper. Atreyu was painfully gorgeous this evening yet so contrasting in his elements Atemu was thrown at a loss. Atreyu's face held no glamor beside the glyphic swirls marking his forehead that shimmered with a translucent mother-of-pearl quality across his pale skin. His Needle was a whip tonight, glowing violently, wrapped round his waist twice or thrice over the smooth surface of the combat suit he wore. The effect was futuristic, alien, yet Atreyu appeared as at home in the garb as he did with translucent fairy's wings or in an angle's robe.

"Thank you," he murmured suddenly under Atemu's stare, "for saving me the other night."

The sincerity of it, the gentleness of the tone, could've flourished in a song.

"It's…" Atemu knew he should say something, something traditional to what brothers' said in the Reaper ranks: pleasure, glory… all those silly words they used to express their joy in keeping each other safe and supporting the cause. It was the etiquette of the place. The nature of their camaraderie played on his mind but he couldn't form the words he knew were appropriate.

Amar had warned him and he had to wonder: was Atreyu really at war with him in the Natural World? Did he hate the Yami who shamed Atemu and shared their sacred secrets? Atemu should have been be strict, guarded, against his own heart yet Atreyu Damestaire was as evanescent in his beauty as the moment they met.

"You saved me when we met," he remembered, it tumbled out of his lips before he recognized how it might be taken. He had said it more in reflection but it could be observed as a proper response. To say that he owed Atreyu, that they were even, was reasonable.

The Faen saw through it.

"How could I forget?" He smiled but left it to lie.

Yami had been a carefree fool that night when they met. Atemu's hunts had seemed dreams akin to paradises where he was safe, unbeatable, and where the sun was never cruel. He had yet to understand the dichotomy of this world: half fantasy, half nightmare, and how brutal it could turn all at once. Atreyu had manifested, already there, when Atemu had wandered too far into an odd place and found himself embroiled in trouble as the Faen had been repairing a tear. Atemu had been so lucky then not to be hurt. What would happen to Yami if he was hurt? He had never asked himself that. He had always escaped consequence.

"We're almost there." Atreyu warned and Atemu caught the flash of a tear-drop like crystal dangling, dancing, from the Faen's earlobe under the lush hair as he glanced. "You'll like this dimension."

"Our task?" Atemu supposed.

"The laboratories are infected with magic that has crossed from another realm." The Faen explained. "We have to cleanse it. Get the red paint out of the blue."

Atreyu paused, seemed unsure of something, but then gave into what Atemu realized was the urge to smile, playfully, and confessed:

"It'll be fun."

Atemu fumbled, lost, at the sheer perplexity of Atreyu admitting to the secret of feeling the thrill, euphoria, which the Faen always held under a guise of elegance. Atemu knew, had suspected, that Atreyu being as easy in his understanding of the Supernatural as he was would enjoy the glorious nature of their hunts more than Atemu could being so clumsy in his inexperience. The Faen had never admitted it to him before though and as Atreyu tucked a soft fragment of hair behind his ear to reveal that twinkling drop of crystal, his radiantly inhuman eyes focused on the elevators doors, Atemu found himself beaming ridiculously. He wanted to kiss that ear.

Forgiveness perhaps?

But those emails Yami received from the human claiming to be Atreyu's reincarnation and Natural World vessel…

Atemu wanted to speak, to ask, lips parting but to his dismay he was too late.

"_Now_." Atreyu whispered, flashing with keen intensity, as the steel slid open.

* * *

1 So Atemu found Atreyu who was off on a social call, rather than official business, and who got mixed up in an accident. No big bad for us yet.

2 Who are the people who sent a very clear message to Yami by breaking his window? Human or not? Seers or not?

3 Sanctuary (for all you sightseers) will return later~

4 Well, now we have a number for exactly how long Jenzar has been missing. Let me just emphasise: this is why the Reapers care he's missing. It would be normal for Jenzar not remember who he was for a while after reincarnating, normal for him to take a while finding Atreyu, and that is fine. The fact he hasn't shown up a speck for 400yrs is _not_ normal (and also a secret the Reaper Core was trying to keep under wraps till Yami blew the lid on the fact he was missing). As for if he's dead, again, in this world only the body dies and the soul reincarnates so something has either: happened to Jenzar's soul or someone has figured out how to destroy matter/souls (we're fucked if so).

4 Just reminding: Cobalt has popped up multiple times since the first chapter but we've never met him directly.

5 Yugi and Atreyu's little twitches, little smiles and hesitancies might be something for your theorisers to think about too!

6 I know Atreyu seems a little unsympathetic sometimes, a little old fashioned, but I hope you guys can forgive him his anger and his sadness while we get to know him better. He's a sweet character really but everyone's allowed to have a bad century or two every now and again. I'm curious though: what do we think Atreyu's current incarnation is up to? What about his emails? Will he really not help Yami? Will he be our big bad? Will he kill Yami or punish him some other way? Has he already started?

Love you guys massively and I hope you have a great week. Please excuse any errors I've had to run off to a party.


	7. And Never the Twain Shall Meet

Hey Lovelies! Two things before you continue: I'd like to amend a note from last chapter. When I said we've '_never met Cobalt directly_' I just meant that we have never actually seen Cobalt while Atemu has been hunting (that seemed to confuse a few people so my apologies). Secondly…

IMPORTANT NOTICE: In lieu of the recent FF.n tangle I'd like to let you all know I have an Archive Of Our Own (AO3) account under the username Vanya_Deyja. If anything is removed from my account here it will be on AO3 (I'm backing everything up there slowly but surely and eventually I plan to be updating both accounts simultaneously) and I'm also posting a special one part/two part on AO3 in the not so distant future so stay posted for more on that.

You _do not_ need an account to read, comment or leave kudos on AO3. That special ficlet will be EXCLUSIVE TO AO3 and if you've read my stuff for years you don't want to miss it.

* * *

Chapter 7: _And Never the Twain Shall Meet_…

The elevator opened- _clunk_ _swish_- onto the cleanest space Atemu had grazed in recent hunts. There was no natural light only luminescence that came from the buzzing fluorescents that ran in clean parallel lines some twenty feet above their heads. The sound off-put Atemu who would rather have possessed mastery of all his senses but Atreyu strayed from the prim elevator into the large laboratory expanse of steel, white flushed concrete, and glass panelling.

"Like Aperture," Atreyu breathed effortlessly as he swayed forward and Atemu caught it as strange.

"Aperture?" He fumbled.

"Don't you play?" Atreyu teased vaguely and Atemu was all the more amused.

"You mean the Game? _Portal?_" He muttered starkly at the easy expression which the Faen cast over his shoulder.

"Yes, that one," he answered casually to the Reaper's dismayed surprise. "I do live on Earth like you Atemu. Not under a rock."

"I just…"

Atreyu never spoke of Earth. Atemu had only known he resided there based on what Amar had told him and what others had declared. Atreyu never spoke of it himself so openly. Yami stirred and his dream seemed to have compounded to crush against his day to day more intensely.

"_Shh_," Atreyu hissed softly, raising his index finger to taste the air languidly as the vents rattled curiously. He fell suddenly to whispering, eyes darting, tracing magic Atemu could not make out as he unlooped the whip from his waist in slow steady motions. "Shall we play superheroes for a while?"

"They're coming?" Atemu supposed coming behind him. Unsure how else to respond. Atreyu had been so insistent to remain cool, aloof, with him that anxiety twisted over joy at the Faen's playfulness. It was a Faen quality to be well spirited but Atemu was newly unaccustomed to it. Still, in his heart, he wanted to see this happier side of Atreyu.

"Aye," the Faen whispered poignantly, "they're coming closer. They don't know we're here. If we slip through there-" he gestured to the hydraulic door emblazoned _0_3 in perfectly aligned black paint strips "-we can take them by surprise."

"After you," he offered spreading his palm before him. Frankly whatever lay before them was more likely to take Atemu by surprise than the reverse.

Atreyu laughed.

It was so quiet, so wind like and fluting Atemu nearly missed it in the whisper. Oh but… Oh Gods… just like Yugi, just the same, he sighed torn but the sound.

"Come." The Faen beckoned temptingly as Atemu was left stinted and stunned.

The way Atreyu twirled in his gait, his light footed stride, would be the death of Atemu. It entrapped Yami's foolish imagination for now Atreyu was like Yugi also and all the darkness of wicked thoughts were setting in over Atemu. He couldn't think like Yami did. He couldn't let himself be weakened by Atreyu when now he needed to be on his highest guard, as Amar had warned him, but wasn't it temptation realized? Jenzar Fraveous had been gone four hundred years… why not Atemu…?

_No_.

Atreyu might forgive him for his incarnation's ridiculous books, for his stupidity in breaking their secrets, but Atreyu was more furious with him than he comprehended and as beautiful as he was Atreyu was claimed. Atreyu would never, _ever_, forgive Atemu if he insulted Jenzar Fraveous' absence by trying to supplant the Champion himself. Jenzar Fraveous would never forgive Atemu Pheramora either for that matter should they meet. If the Champion knew Atemu had thought such a thing…Perhaps even Amar would loathe him for the trespass. Even mild Amar would be furious if Atemu had made some gesture after Jenzar's Faen considering the redheads' long friendship with Jenzar. He stuffed the idea back into the Pandora's Box where it had sprung from. Damn Yami would be his ruin.

Atemu followed.

Atreyu waited by one side of the hydraulic lock and Atemu knew well enough to take the other as the Faen ran his fingers skirting over the keypad panel embedded in the wall. The little device flared to life, submitting to Atreyu's magic without ever asking for a passcode as it spread the steel panels open onto a another white concrete corridor.

The whip, the Veil's Needle, lashed unfurling by Atreyu's hip as the Faen darted through the opening down along the opposing end of the corridor out of Atemu's gaze. He twisted, hand grazing the wall, as he came round the bend of the doorway to follow the Faen. He was behind Atreyu, his vision obscured, when he caught sight of what the other had lunged after.

The camouflage green monstrosity had made a cameo in some alien movie or another Atemu was vaguely certain. Yami had seen it before on some late night rerun when he was little he felt. Skeletal, sheened, sharp and minimalistic the creature was insect like yet had the bipedal nature of a human that was as off-putting as the man-like features of its insides. Atreyu lashed back, forward, the Needle contracting electrically on the surface of the beast's… skin? Armour? Its mouth opened, the cry of a bull escaped it, but the interior of its gnawing mouth was fleshy and familiar. The tongue, the teeth, the inner pink of the snouted cheeks were human when everything else of it wasn't.

Atemu found it disgusting.

Atreyu flourished on light feet, under and past it down the corridor just beyond Atemu's view where the Reaper could hear more of the creatures stirring. As he darted the Faen hooked one arm in his belt, tossing some implement back over his shoulder to Atmeu, as he abandoned the Reaper with the first wounded beast.

Atemu caught the implement haplessly between his silly fingers and found it gun like. What? They were playing with weapons here were they? He didn't question it. He assumed Atreyu had some ruse, some means or reason, for leaving him with the weapon and the beast, monstrosity, was lashing snakelike towards Atemu before he had much more time to consider the weapon's appropriateness.

It felt right to run. Atemu could almost sense Atreyu dragging him on. So he lunged with the weapon in his hand at the creature. Fear was there but strangely numbed with a security of trust. He was beginning to understand Atreyu's movements. He had more faith in his astral form to endure whatever happened and movement came effortlessly: run, point, pull the trigger, lunge under the beast, push his weight off his palm and run forward after the Faen.

He didn't check the weapon for ammunition, it seemed unnecessary, bullets weren't real here. More likely the weapon was directing his own magic through Atemu's unconscious imagination into the form of a blast like a bullet ripping through its prey. Atreyu had given him a tool to wordlessly direct his magic, to try something different, and Atemu followed suit as best he could. He was cautious of overthinking it, removing the mystery, and rendering the weapon useless through a sudden jolt of doubt.

He found himself, fluid and bounding after Atreyu as he rattled off shots. He knew well enough to focus his aim, shattering the great domed head of the next beast as he darted past it. It was a pleasure to run. It made it all appear brisk and game like. The creatures had a lag in their senses that although their movements were sharp, thrusting, meant they often moved a moment too slow if Atemu was on his toes and remained in motion.

They were packed though the hallways, in the laboratory offices and testing chambers and Atreyu was all Atemu had to orientate himself. It didn't concern him like it should have. Atreyu might hate him, might loathe him, but the Faen was ruled by justice. He would not abandon or doom Atemu here. Besides, pushing it aside, Atemu found himself having revelling in the instinctiveness of the motion.

Run, skid, shoot, twist, shoot, run…

Atreyu's whip, the Veil's Needle, was striking lightning like ahead as the Faen pivoted on his feet. He was laughing again, flippant, natural and wondrous. Yami rippled at the sound of that laughter; it called to him, and drove Atemu into tighter pursuit of the Faen's light. He wanted to be closer to Atreyu's heat.

Atreyu's feet rattled over a forgotten desk in a leap, the landscape blurred to Atemu as they ran through the rooms, and all hands Atemu hefted himself over and after. His hand caught Atreyu's free palm when his feet hit the floor and the Faen gripped the warm digits in sweet fingers without glancing back. He dragged them on, Atemu surging, Atreyu glowing.

They came back to back, twisting in at their joint hands, fingers lacing as the motion occurred smoothly. It was dancelike, darting, synchronized when Atemu took the next three shots. Atreyu's back warm against his when the Faen jerked his wrist to send the whip ricocheting against his own foes. Atemu cleared their rear in an effective series of taps, video game-esque in its amusement, and not a second later Atreyu's fingers flexed round his and the Atemu knew at once to turn his toes and take flight after the Faen onwards.

They rushed on, and on, for what must've been hours but felt considerably less. Atemu's whole body was in plush synchronization with his mind and with Atreyu's will, his intentions, and the reverberating effect was a rush of his heart that he hadn't experienced since his youth. It felt natural, rippled with rightness, imbued with satisfaction that gave Atemu a security which leapt easily to joy when they came to a skidding halt in the final, massive, test chamber.

Atemu's feet caught in the panelled floor before Atreyu's lighter set and yanking at their joint digits he spun the Faen round and back into his arms effortlessly. He hardly thought of it and it seemed neither did Atreyu the way, flushed, panting and laughing, the Faen threw his arms round Atemu's neck. Atemu's hands moved of their own accord, wrapping up round the fairy's waist, spinning them with the last of the perpetual motion surging through them. Atreyu's feet left the ground, Atemu had dropped the gun and he lost track of Atreyu's Needle.

It was so pristinely unconsidered how the Faen let Atemu sweep him up wordlessly. The Reaper could feel the hum of his own magic rumbling in accord with Atreyu's pulse and he was at once immediately reassured all in the universe could be well.

"_Oh Jenz!_"

It tumbled out of Atreyu's mouth. Atemu was winded by it, jolted back to himself, where he had spun them to a stop as his heart plummeted down through his legs. His magic and Atreyu's Champion's long absence had fooled them both into getting lost in the dream of it. The Faen had forgotten for a moment, just an instant, that this was Atemu Pheramora and Atreyu had felt for him what Atreyu had always felt for Jenzar Fraveous. Atemu understood.

Atreyu's magic crumbled at the impact of the words. As he said them the Faen seemed to at once realize it was a lie and his energy yanked back from Atemu's where, for a second, their souls had brushed. Likewise, all at once, Atreyu fell back to fight from Atemu's arms in horror.

The Faen stood before Atemu's now empty arms, backing up on his light feet, panting with a force that heaved his beautiful chest as his fingers shook by his thighs. Atemu watched, caught the horror in Atreyu's face, caught the guilt, the sadness, the loathing, the anger all rush over him in a swelling tide that played through the Faen's eyes. Atreyu's fingers came, cupping, over his lips and Atemu could feel the cut of icy guilt as without more than that the Faen evaporated from being to phase out.

The hunt was over, they'd won, and there was nothing else to do. Nothing had ruined the moment but their thoughts. Atemu knew that. He also knew that for a second he had given Atreyu a comfort the Faen had been sorely missing for four hundred years.

It was worse than that though. He had seen how lax Atreyu's likeness to Yugi was. Yugi was much more like the Faen than the reverse. Atreyu was much more complex than Yugi. So it troubled him, worse it troubled Yami, that when Atemu had taken Atreyu into his arms he had thought _only_ of Atreyu rather than Yugi at all. Atemu hadn't seen head or hair of Yugi in his mind's eye when he had held Atreyu just now. Not even a glimmer.

* * *

This yo-yoing effect of the guilt was extreme on Yami's part. He felt it more acutely than his dreaming self Atemu. Perhaps because of, as Amar had explained, the factors of the Natural World? Either way Yami was finding it harder and harder to question or conclude where reality and fantasy settled. Worse he was finding it a more irrelevant question by the day.

He had theories, lots of them, after all his dreams tended to reflect his day to day in some Freudian way but that was no longer the case entirely. Yami had passed out at the impulse of a dream, there were the emails, there were the strangers who may have been nothing or monsters of some variety come out to find him. What was worse Yugi, his romance, believed in this type of reality and Yami found it would've been easier to draw conclusions if he didn't.

Lord, if Atreyu was real Yami was torturing him and he had been, at least in mind if not body, untrue to Yugi's very trepidatious but trusting love with his feelings creeping for Atreyu.

It must've been karma, subconscious but reliable, when Yugi wouldn't answer his phone. Yami considered it rightly deserved. Yet, selfish as it was, Yami wanted some kind of pleasure to forget the present. He would have to settle begrudgingly for Tumblr, his Iphone, and the mild day trip out of town.

His publisher wanted him at another convention. He could deal with that but he was finding it difficult to be enthused at the prospect. Poor kids were going to receive a terrible host when he traipsed up on stage like this.

Gods he wanted to hear Yugi's voice.

Such a sporadic thought but he wanted to realign his inner equilibrium with the devotion that gorgeous creature inspire inside him. When Yugi was present he found footing, sanity, gravity and when he was gone Yami was very much at his wits' end these past few days.

What was Yugi's favourite song? He considered in a juvenile tryst through his Iphone racking up the internet. FLAG wasn't it? He mentioned it the first day they met. What did it stand for again? He scrolled the you-tube search bar for suggestions-

_Fight Like A Girl!_ That was it!

He padded the screen with the heel of his thumb and settled back with his headphones. The train ride to the convention and home was cheaper than gas but it left him with nothing else to do but indulge in this attempt at closeness until Yugi answered his texts messages.

The girl in the video had a Mohawk of brilliant feathers, wore a rumpled corset, and the clamshell of her bra reminded him of crumpled leaves. She was a fairy almost, he decided, as the video loaded.

"_My heart is a weapon of war. My voice is my weapon of choice…"_

That song! Yami blinked. It had come onto Yugi's mp3 that day on the bus to the gardens, where they'd kissed, and it was the only song he'd skipped.

"_An eye for an eye, a heart for a heart, a soul for a soul. We fight for the dream. We fight to the death. We fi-ight for control!" _

It rattled him with symbolism, double meanings, that he found difficult to write off solely as paranoia.

"_There is no such thing as justice. All the best we can hope for is revenge, a hostile take-over, an absolute rebellion till the end! This is our battle cry. I've given you a head start, you're going to need it, cause I fight like a girl!"_

He swallowed.

"_We are under attack. What is the body count? I've lost track. If nobody's mentioned how this will end then I will be the first: there are more of __us__ then there are of __you__. So show me your worst!"_

Amar played at his mind. His warning that Atreyu's current incarnation would be less stable than the Faen was when he was phased in to the Supernatural side of the Veil.

"_It's so easy to kill. This I learnt by watching you. If I have to I will. It's not pretty but it's true. I am through lying still…So who's scary now?" _

This didn't sound like something the Yugi he knew, laced with hidden history, would enjoy.

"_NO MERCY! It's a bit too late. The game is on: don't run! Don't hide! Don't wait! Cause if we've got no honour then we've got no shame. If it's in self-defence then we will take no blame. This is our battle cry."_

Then again, Yugi spoke of a familial mentality and defending that peace. What would Yugi do if he was pushed to it? What did Bakura do to get himself in trouble so frequently?

"_So if I end up with blood on my hands, well I know, that you'll understand."_

What about Jenzar? Would he understand if Atreyu went off the rails?

Yami knew he was reading too much into it, too Sherlockian in his obsession, but that didn't stop him attempting to dissect it. Replaying it over, and over, and over...

"_I've given you a head start. You're going to __need it__._"

* * *

"Ello?" Yugi yawned into the mouthpiece.

Just hearing his voice made Yami desperate.

"Hey," he laughed weakly, "you're hard to get a hold of."

"Sorry," the younger sighed, "work crisis. Freaking Xcel makes me what to kill myself. How was the convention?"

"Same old," Yami shrugged, he hadn't paid it much heed. He was so engrossed in his fantasy currently that reality had paled into insignificance. This was more important. "You sort everything out at work?"

"Unfortunately," Yugi grumbled, "you get any writing done either?"

"I wish." He snorted cycling through the mundane. "You?"

"Ick." The boy grunted displeased elaborating: "University, history, black plague. I've got a research essay on boils. Writing footnotes makes me crunch like hag, like that witch from Snow White, gravity just gets stronger when I have to reference fucking Knight and Smith."

"Can I come over?" Yami didn't want to plead. He was convinced however that if he saw Yugi's home he'd been soothed after that damn, insufferable, song had warped his paranoia.

"Place is a mess. I'm breeding the bubonic plague myself." Yugi joked, tired, but offered a consolation. "Can I come to your place? Smells like baking."

"I think I lost a bag of cookies behind the thermostat." He chuckled.

"Well you're no Bette Meddler or Betty Crooker or whatever." The smaller yawned good-humouredly, decidedly reactant of the universe at current when he declared: "I need pizza, I'm craving, and chocolate. A whole block."

"You get the chocolate, I'll order the pizza," Yami swore. "Come here and let me cuddle you?"

"God," Yugi groaned, pointedly relieved at the concept. "_Yes_. I'm turning my brain off."

"Bring a crowbar for mine."

"Like um…" the smaller strained, clicking his fingers within Yami's hearing, "Gordon Freeman!"

"Yeah," Yami chuckled, brow twitching tightly at the coincidence.

"See you in a sec."

"Kay," he breathed, "love you."

"You too," Yugi replied dismissively.

* * *

So Yami's first attempt, however awkward, to tell Yugi he loved him was brushed over. He was too afraid to push it. He wanted to take the surface of the night for what it was without reading into it. He tossed the pizzas across the coffee table, found a bad rerun slew of crime shows, so he and Yugi could lick their fingers and press to each other on his sofa.

The young man was slack tonight. There was something human about the casual exhaustion in him that was intimate in its acceptance when, in a paint stained tee and weathered jeans, he let Yami gather him up tightly into his lap. He was so small that Yami's arms settled round him perfectly as Yugi let all his weight hang on the older man. Yami's limbs flexed through the commercials, squeezing him, finger tips straying up and down his back in a way that was entirely void of sexual inclination. He just wanted Yugi. He wanted that passionate knowledge he'd had at the gardens when Yugi had felt like he was all his. He wanted to be the man Yugi had hung out for all these years. He wanted to be the lover who played hero to his sweetheart, his baby, all those million things he wanted to call Yugi or tell him.

It helped only that Yugi was now so at peace in Yami's presence which effectively eased the silence between them to a wearability Yami could weather for the time being. Yugi fingers twitched against his exposed neck, petite hand resting between the opened folds of his shirt collar, and compelled Yami peppered his brow with the most tender kisses he was certain he'd ever given.

"Hey," he swallowed dryly, "can I ask you something…?"

Palpitations wracked his chest.

"Yugi?" He whispered, nudging, "you…?"

The boy moaned, rubbing his cheek into Yami's shirt, and the man realized that his captive fairy had fallen into a groggy doze in his arms.

"Hey," he whispered, losing his nerve entirely in the smile that fumbled across his cheeks. "You want to stay here tonight?"

"Ah-huh," Yugi muttered, dazed.

"Let's go crash," he decided, sighing as his fingers fondled the remote.

* * *

It must've been past midnight when Yami stirred on the sweaty mattress. In that lull place where the night was so dark time became irrelevant and everything seemed after twelve but before three. The bed sheets felt well used, loved, and Yugi was pliant in his arms yet somehow stiff and alert.

"You awake?" The boy whispered.

"Yeah," he replied in a hush, there had been some signal in the silence that had given them an awareness of each other through their body language.

"You feel that?" Yugi asked, coiled tightly, prompting the man to strain his awareness into the dim.

"Feel what?"

"Like you're four years old and you want to pull the blanket over your head to hide?"

Yami's gut wavered in an intake of breath, steeled, as in the dark he sensed some imperceptible eye intruding on their privacy. Nothing was there he was reasonably aware, nothing he could feel, but the room was cold under the weight of his imagination and drawing Yugi closer to him he nodded into the soft cheek against his.

"Stay here," Yugi instructed gently, so quiet as he very gingerly untangled himself from Yami's unwilling arms and pushed back the blankets.

The room had a consciousness, some alien and enemy quality to its every orifice in Yami's mind as the boy gazed and gently rested his feet upon the carpet. He heard Yugi's natural rustle, the softness of his breathing, acutely aware in his dark grogginess. Yami expected something just outside the seam of the open door, something under the bed, something unacceptable, unnatural, formless and wrong that had intruded but was hidden.

Yugi's profile flittered into Yami's view, illuminated in the moonlight, as he so poignantly slid down a shaft of the blinds over the man's window. Yami felt the tension in belly, that warrior readiness, souring his air while he waited for the recognisance. Yugi frowned perceptively to Yami's view from his vantage point and whispered:

"There are people in the back yard."

"What?" Yami floundered quietly, pushing up onto his elbows and scrambling uneasily to the window. He leant behind Yugi, reached over his shoulder, strained his eyes through the gap to the moonlit expanse of the grass below which seemed eerie at the current hour.

They were there alright, clear as day, two vague individuals standing fearlessly in the stark centre of his backyard so clearly invading the private property it could be no accident. They were languid and paused, leaning into each other, but Yami perceived from the rumple of their clothes and the shine of the light that they were the man and woman who had so nearly broken his window several days ago.

"It's them," he murmured, and he was sure of it.

The woman had one bare foot, the man a ruined overcoat, they were whispering.

"The ones who tried to break your window?" Yugi whispered.

"Definitely."

"They're not human." The smaller asserted with such odd sincerity Yami believed him where he never would have believed himself.

If Yami had any doubt, which he did not in Yugi's judgement, it was erased when the man and woman lurched to bipedal motion dragging themselves in awkward, unfamiliar, actions across the lawn. They looked like dogs trying to walk, like things in suits.

"What do we do?" He hissed.

"I'll go downstairs and scare them off." Yugi whispered so unyieldingly, so unprompted, that Yami knew he'd said these words before.

"No you won't." He swore. "You're not going down there alone. We call the cops."

"Won't believe us, won't help," the young man was insistent. "They'll be gone before they get here and then we'll just have some cock-and-bull story. We'll look ridiculous."

"I don't care." Yami hissed. "Whatever makes them leave."

"_I'll _make them leave." Yugi retorted stubbornly. "Where's my bag?"

"On the couch downstairs." The elder had no comprehension what Yugi might've brought with him but it made his heart squeeze to consider that the article was so far removed from their current seclusion.

"I have to go get it then." He explained.

"No," Yami answered.

"Then come with me," he urged, "bring something heavy. I need it. We're sitting ducks here."

"Okay," he hated that he was forced to relent but his hand was laid out simply enough, this was a climax of some description and Yami would have to face it. "Stay here a sec."

The moment was tangibly tense when Yami fished under the bed for the old aluminium baseball bat he'd long forgotten trying, stupidly, to accustom its weight in his fingers as they accommodated the handle. Yugi slipped up his jacket from the floor, arms sliding in casting shadows against the far war as he drifted to the door from the window.

Yami followed down the stairs. The bat felt too light as it grazed his thigh and bounced in his gait. Yugi clutched his jacket over his chest like a mother in a nightgown and then they were drifting cautiously into the lounge which appeared so warped in the hazy moonlight till it was almost unrecognizable to Yami. Yugi's eyes darted but he wasn't at all quivering when he found his satchel on the floor by the sofa and drew up onto the seat. Yami found himself standing lost in the carpet, on an island, between the stairs and the archway to the kitchen where the back door remained locked but distinctly vulnerable.

Yugi was too familiar, too comfortable, when he slipped the pendent out of the side pocket and fastened it round his neck under Yami's curious but wandering eyes and then resumed very diligently to ruffle through his things. Yugi had lost something, he swore, his pace increasing but eventually he was slipping the prized object onto his hands over his ever so quaking fingers.

He drifted back to Yami, bag forgotten and the elder wanted to hold him but was too afraid to risk it given how at the change of the wind he anticipated disaster.

_Hick-Hick-Ching _

The handle of the back door was wrenched, rattled in its socket, and Yami found it difficult to contain himself. He was shaking beyond his immediate perception he knew.

"What if they get in?" Yami murmured so afraid, illogically, that they would hear him.

"Let em." Yugi replied tightly. "I can't do much if they're out there except frighten them off and even that might not work."

"Why not run them off?"

"I want them gone for good." He answered and Yami had only a brief conception of what Yugi was implying. "I'm sick of these twats."

The door shook, one of the pair had thrown their weight into it, and Yami frowned.

"They're going to break it at this rate."

"I've got an idea." Yugi prefaced. "We go out the front we can surprise them round the back."

"I'd rather stay here."

Yugi sighed, irritated, and nodded.

"Then stay here." He snorted.

"What?" Yami flickered. "You can't be serious?"

"I'm getting rid of them." Yugi hissed. "I'm not going to stand around here getting scared."

"You're crazy."

"You're a coward." He admonished back. "Now are you coming or not? Because I'm going."

"What am I supposed to do?" The man reeled weakly. He couldn't bear to let Yugi drift away from him but he couldn't fathom what use he would be.

"Don't let them gang up on me." Yugi answered. "We can take them."

"What are they?" He demanded gently.

"Possessed I think." The younger shrugged. "It doesn't matter. I'll find out in a minute."

"We both will." Yami cringed.

"You can do it." Yugi encouraged gently sweeping on his toes to the front door to work it open quietly after a brisk peek out the front window for an ambush.

Yami found himself surprisingly eager to follow in putting a second door between himself and the intruders. When they were barefoot on the side walk, under the street lamp, he felt so exposed and childish dodging round to the back gate. Why was he doing this? Why was Yugi so accustomed to go it alone? He caught a glimmer of the chain link gloves crisscrossing Yugi's palms as the smaller struggled with the latch of the side gate and guessed that they were made of iron and silver those old favourites of the young man.

This was the difference between he and Yugi he realized. Yugi went to face madness and Yami had been running from him. Yugi was ready for war, to take charge of his reality and demand its submission but as of yet Yami was, as he had said, a coward. He was afraid to ask, afraid to say, what he was thinking because then all of this would change.

He stuck close to Yugi as they skirted the bushes, crinkling on bare feet over the prickled dried out grass of Yami's side passage into the back yard. There was that childhood nostalgia of hide and seek, of playing pretend, all tangled up with the distinct horror of the situation.

The woman was groaning as she thrust her body into the back door attempting vainly to force it open while the man hunched beside her like a heaving ape sagged down by the weight of his own shoulders in the trench coat.

Yugi glanced at Yami, nodded pointedly, and skirting gently into the light of the moon made a shrill little coo in the back of his throat, nearly a whistle, for no other purpose than to garner their attention. The man hefted himself in their direction like a dog, face sullen and haggard but in the sheen of the shadow cast from the porch Yami saw a flicker of catish light across his dilated pupils that was altogether unnatural.

"Come and get it you _ugly motherfucker_." Yugi teased low and smooth.

The man groaned, frustrated, and yawning as he threw open his mouth and exposed his tonsils. He shambled down the two steps, came flailing, but Yami could see the misstep in his motion that was foolish and broken. Yugi dug his heels in and, as the woman shuddered to alertness of them, caught the man by the shoulders as he tried to tackle the boy clear of his feet.

They grappled, Yami tensed, Yugi's hands found the thing's face, his neck, and groaning the man shuddered onto his knees in the grass in a violent reaction to the gloves.

"I am so sick-"

The woman called, more a sighing shriek than a real scream that would alert attention, and Yami was suddenly very aware that he had to step in. She was quicker on her feet, down the steps and running to Yugi.

"-of you pathetic bottom feeders!" Yugi hissed down into the man. Straddling the writhing body as he tried to work it to submission in the grass.

Yami had never been good at sports but Yugi was ignoring the woman, as he struggled with the man, and Yami found the bat thrown from his fingers as he lunged to cut her off in her charge. She was little, cattish, and Yami's arms hooked round her waist as she charged past him utterly oblivious of everything but Yugi. Once Yami had her however she tossed at him, scratching, struggling, hissing, kicking… till her last shoe flew across the grass and he found a better hold to secure her in.

Yugi had one hand on the man's face, the other on his neck, holding the thrashing body in the grass.

"You don't belong in there. So you can take your sorry ass back to the nest and tell your bitch boss all about it." He admonished brazenly. "Now get _OUT_."

The emphasis of the words, thought into action, was crisply crystal clear as that word rang out in the space which seemed to have condensed around them free of external humanity. The houses around felt unreal, far off, from their isolation as if no sound they made could touch them.

"I said," he declared, "_BE GONE_."

Yugi's words cut through the thrashing and groaning the man shuddered, spitting, to slump in nothingness. That was a spell as Yami knew them, plain as day, radiantly real and the man twittered, twitching, as the woman in Yami's arms thrashed with renewed passion.

"Bitch!" The woman spat suddenly at Yugi and Yami fought the urge to release her when the sound which flew from her mouth was a cruel misuse of vocal cords in an approximation of human speech. "Archaic whore!"

"That's cute." Yugi snorted, pushing up onto his feet and striding in carefully. "We've met?"

"I ripped you in the river!" She declared proudly, _it_ declared more like, and seethed in Yami's hands like a viper. "Alexandria!"

"Thanks for visiting then." He replied superfluously. "Let me save you and your trash sisters the trouble of coming here again however with a quick word of advice you can take home with you: in this world or any other, whatever side of the Veil you want to pick, whatever era, I can still _kick your ass_."

"We'll sever you to pieces! Fling your bones to the corners of the universe! They'll all forget you ever existed!"

"_Get out_."

Yugi's voice snapped with such venom Yami could, instantaneously, feel the twang of a severing power. All at once the woman fell limp as a stone in his arms, sagged; a marionette cut loose from whatever dangling cord had been tugging it.

Yugi stood, sighing, shoulders falling. All the coiled intensity draining from him till he appeared petite, frail, and chilled in the night in his much too big jacket that, in the fighting, had fallen down off his shoulders.

"We need to get them onto the street before they wake up." He whispered nonchalant.

It was purposed but supremely casual, business like, and Yami tightened direly with a curt nod as he fought through the substantial grief stricken burn blooming within his chest.

* * *

It was three am, the witching hour Yami remarked to himself with some pained humour, when they fastened the front door and fell coldly into the opposing ends of the sofa. Yami was cold to his bones, from his head to his toes, and Yugi's body was as stiff and vague eyed as he perceived his own to be. The unsaid was consuming between them because Yami knew a dam, a misconception, had just been broken.

He couldn't pretend Yugi's eccentricities were the coping strategies of a mentally ill young man who had flourished in adversity. He couldn't pretend entirely that everything he had encountered these past few weeks had all been illusion and coincidence. He was forced, to that precipice, and angrily made to speak.

"Who are you?" He demanded.

It was so hoarse, broken, round the phlegm gathering sickly in this throat behind the Adam's apple Yami wondered if he could restrain himself from real sobs of agony at the ideas frothing to life.

Nothing.

Yugi fumbled with the chain link gloves untangling them off his hands with a kind of desperate disconnect. The wall between them was back up or, it occurred to Yami's horror, maybe this was what had been waiting for him behind it all along.

"_Answer me._" He repeated roughly.

"I don't know what you want me to say." Yugi breathed evenly. "I told you. I warned you-"

"Don't give me that crap!" Yami was surprised at himself. It sprung from him fully formed, a monstrous cancer, but his heart was cracking. "You know what I mean! You know _exactly_ what I fuck-"

"Don't you dare." Yugi warned suddenly with a steady pace.

The boy's fingers had curled in his lap, his eyes wavered over the carpet, but Yami's voice was torn from his mouth by the power of nothing else but the radiance of Yugi's atmosphere that assaulted him now in full bloom. He knew then that if Yugi looked at him Yami wouldn't be able to take it.

"I am Atreyu Damestaire," the young man announced with an unwavering, righteous, fury, "and _you_ will_ not _disrespect me."

Yugi was exposed to him now and when his eyes landed with blistering determination on Yami's the man knew he was lost. He knew it was the truth. His gut and his heart wrenched in agony too sublime to be an illusion and here in all his splendour Atreyu Damestaire's incarnation sat, fleshed, imbued and honestly loathing of Yami's continued existence.

"I knew it." Yami fumbled direly. All of time had stopped outside this room. "I fucking knew it…"

"Does it hurt?" Yugi supposed coldly casting an appraising eye over him. "_Good."_

"_Why? _Why would you…?"

"Why play you? Why do you think?" He snapped. "Do you have any idea, any comprehension, of what those books have done to my life? The first book came out when I was seventeen. Since then Seers have been crawling everywhere."

Yami couldn't take it. He'd been waiting for this, all along, but he still couldn't bear it as he buried his hands in his face. Yugi however wasn't done and he _would_ be heard.

"I can't stay in the same place anymore. I can't talk to my family. I can't have a moments' peace. I can't mourn in private because all your belligerent _vox populi_ are gossiping about me on every possible fragment of social media! I have to hear other people use _his_ name! I have to know that at any moment I could hear some brat's opinion on my life story! You took everything I ever told you and gave it to the whole goddamn world! You used me! You betrayed me! You made money off my pain!"

The boy was shaking with rage, it infused his limbs, and the weight of it bore down on Yami dreadfully.

"I'm lucky to still be here," he elaborated, "do you know what I've been like without Jenzar? Last lifetime I tried to kill myself four times before being institutionalised and eventually succeeding. The one before that I was a nun and the time before that a serial killer! I'm losing my mind and _you are not helping!"_

"Please," Yami pleaded, slipping from the sofa to present himself on his knees before Yugi's trembling body burying his face in the boy's knees. "I didn't know. I swear I didn't know any of it was real. Not until the last few weeks. I just thought they were dreams."

Yugi scoffed.

"Likely story," he muttered dryly, "you had an impossibly high awareness of the situation. You knew you were dreaming the first time I met you, you did research into the history of it, and you remembered everything that happened in acute detail for those damnable tripe novels. You expect me to believe that Seto Kaiba, the most sceptical man I've ever met, figured it out before you did?"

Oh if ever there was a time to grovel.

"Yes!" Yami insisted. "Until I met you I…"

Yugi glowed with distain, hell hath no fury like a Faen scorned was the parable he returned to, and on his knees before the stiff Fairy Yami could be forgiven for thinking he was begging to a pagan idol, a ruler, to absolve him and pardon his transgressions. Really, after all, he was. Who knew what Atreyu could do here in the Natural World if he was real?

"Look me in the eye," he ordered coolly, "and tell me the absolute truth. No hyperbole, no euphemisms, no white lies or romanticising or so help me _Atemu Pheramora_ you'll wish you'd never been born."

"I swear to you," Yami murmured though his voice seemed to have no strength as he met Yugi's eyes, "I didn't ever think they were more than dreams. I thought it was just clever escapism. Then I met you and I've been convinced that I was losing my mind. I didn't think you could be real. I promise you, please, if I'd thought for a second you were real I wouldn't have ever…"

Yugi, Atreyu, had a gaze that stripped of all pretention or disguise was magical and it scoured right through Yami as if he were a millimetre thick.

* * *

1 FLAG by Emilie Autumn is a real song. It's on youtube and I'd give it a listen cause her emphasis is perfect!

2 _'Vox Populi'_ is an old latin term for '_The People_' it was what politicians used to refer to their masses.

3 A big shout out to _Pika92_who was right with her guess last chapter! Congratulations!

4 Okay, okay, calm down everybody! I'm getting to what you all want to know: yes. Yugi is Atreyu. Yes Yugi is totally aware he is Atreyu. They are one and the same. Don't hate Atreyu yet. Will you get yourself a happy puzzle-shipping ending? Of course you will this is a Romance. You just have to be patient.

5 If you think I haven't answered a burning question by the end of the next chapter don't fret. 90% of your obvious questions will be answered either in the next chapter or as we go along.

Hope you all enjoyed! Please don't worry too much between now and next chapter darlings. I won't cliff-hanger you like this too often.


	8. Welcome to Wonderland

Slow chapter this week kiddos but it will pick up again soon. Figured you lot needed a little breather after last week.

Currently working on some lovely new stuff for you outside of Fantastic Parallels which I think you should all enjoy. That surprise I mentioned last chapter should be ready to hit the shelves by the end of this week coming and I think I might put it on FFn for you after all (I'm a little bipolar). More details will be coming out of my account around Wednesday if it's ready for publishing by next Friday.

Welcome, by the way, to Act 2!

* * *

Chapter 1: Act 2: _Welcome to Wonderland__  
_

When Yugi exhaled, softening the air, the entire atmosphere of the room lifted from round Yami's shoulders. Yugi's gaze relented from over his face, becoming vague and gooey, but there was a cool, deep, ripple through the irises. The ocean was inside him, Yami couldn't deny that anymore, but shrinking that vastness back inside himself Yugi's extremity became once more unclear and inconsequential to his senses. Yugi was still so powerfully regal but it had dissipated to the obscurity of a distant pagan idol. The god had descended but now retreated back to a petite fairy, a wisp, mysterious, mythic and unknowable to a trembling beggar of a man like Yami.

Yugi sighed. Atreyu shimmered just beneath the surface overlapping and completely consuming Yami's current visage of the young man. Yugi wasn't some eccentric, eclectic, student Yami had plucked out of the ether he was a creature Yami had history with. He was an entity, being, Yami had learnt to appreciate and revere. Yugi was the expert, the mastery of elements Yami was still foolishly lost amongst, and Yami owed him allegiance and sacrifice.

Yugi had hinted now to all of Yami's misgivings, to every consequence Yami's misstep had wrought upon his life and that guilt coursed through Atemu inside him, just beneath the surface, till it was more that old Reaper part of Yami appealing to Atreyu through Yugi. The sides of the Faen were more innately unified than he or Atemu. Yami's books had wrought hell on Atreyu, on Yugi's, life in the Natural World. Demons were real. His friends were real. His adventure and duty was real.

He had put everyone in danger.

Yami's buried his face back into the Faen's knees, grasping the supple sides of his calves, a Knight who'd failed and Yugi, gently, placed his hand atop Yami's head to stroke his delicate fingers through Yami's dishevelled hair.

"Everything will be alright," Yugi breathed with a numbed affection that was deep but unapproachable. The Faen was lost in thought but nonetheless his hands stroked Yami's hair and soothed the tendons of his neck like a musician. "It'll all be okay."

"I swear…" Yami muttered weakly.

"I believe you." Yugi assured. "You didn't know any better. It's alright. All's well that ends well, all's forgiven, I'll make this right again."

"I put all of you in danger." He repeated to himself. "I've put the Veil round Earth in danger."

"We'll fix it." The Faen promised. "You and I will clean this up and move on with our lives. We can be proper friends together now. I can get to know you properly now. I…" Yugi sighed heavily, arm round Yami's shoulder, leaning in to cradle his scalp and curl over him protectively. "I'm so sorry Atemu. I'm so sorry."

Yami understood what he meant and that was perhaps the worst element of this disaster. Yugi wasn't his to love, protect and cloister anymore. The boundary of how far their friendship could stretch was now established in stone. Atreyu was Excalibur, he would only yield to the one true Champion, and Yami would never be Jenzar Fraveous so Yugi would never do more than love him like a brother, a mother, a confidant and confessor. Yugi would never be his to hold after tonight.

So Yugi apologised. Yugi had known they would never be anything and that Yami would never amount to much in his heart because he had a set destiny. Yugi hadn't cared. Yugi had given Yami license to pursue him only so he could have this moment to torture Yami for his misgivings. Yami had made living for Yugi more inhospitable than it had been in centuries and Yugi had found him to torture him into understanding.

It was a very righteous kind of Fairy punishment really. It made sense. Atreyu would not destroy him or imprison him as Yami may have unwillingly anticipated, no that was crass, instead filled with rage Yugi had decided to take the more insidious path of breaking Yami's heart as part of an illustrative fable. Now Yami could appreciate Yugi's painful undying longing for Jenzar Fraveous. Now Yami would endure the deepest kind of wound the Faen could inflict upon him and redeem himself through it. Now Yami would know what it was like to lose perfect love or the potential for it.

Yet perhaps Atreyu, Yugi, had been wrong in punishing him now that it came to light that Yami had no knowledge of the intimate reality of the situation until tonight. Yami actually supposed Yugi had every right to punish him or at least be hateful and spiteful to him. Not even Faens were perfectly loving and forgiving. Just like the ocean, just like Gaia. The truth of it was Atemu had given Yami every chance to note that it had all been real but Yami had used no discretion, happy to potter along, happy to get rich and famed off the stories of others. Inside Yami suspected he had always had that niggling knowledge, the doubt and certainty, of this world lying outside the mundane that he had enfolded in. He suspected deep down he had always known this parallel world existed in more than just his mind but he had denied the depth of those implications for his own comfort.

Now Yami had to grow up, not by dismantling his fantasy, but rather by taking on the responsibilities it entrusted.

Now was the time to be a Reaper in mind, body and spirit.

"I'm so sorry Yami," Yugi repeated sincerely to him, to _him_. "I'm so sorry."

They may both have been wrong here. Yami had known better in his heart and Yugi, even weakened by creeping madness and never ending pain, should have been more restrained.

"I don't blame you," Yami realized, "I'm just so _mad_ at myself."

"I've always liked you Atemu," the Faen assured, "I've been furious at you these past few months but I've never not cared about your future or your life. I'd protect you from harm but I guess… I wanted you to know what you'd done to the rest of us. I shouldn't have started a vendetta. I'm sorry."

"No," the shake of Yami's head nuzzled him into Yugi's knees and he couldn't bring himself to raise his head because the warmth of Yugi alone still tempted him to cry. It repeated in his head that he could never hold Yugi, never have him, as his. "You warned me."

"Of course you didn't believe me," Yugi scoffed. "I mean, come on, emails from a fucking weirdo fan? I wouldn't believe them either unless I knew that any of this was real. You didn't. I should've picked up on that in your replies but I was so pissed off I thought you were yanking me round. I kept thinking you were some two faced prick who was all comfort and then all gossip the second you let your guard down. I should have known better."

"I'm so stupid," he spat at himself. "_Fuck!_"

Yami swore loudly and abruptly. It rattled the atmosphere, broke the tension, and Yugi flexed round him startling then comforting to clutch him as Yami rippled with self-loathing. He'd fucked everything up and only yelling about it seemed to help.

"Hey," Yugi ordered grasping Yami's clammy cheeks in his palms to force the elder's face up to his as he leant in, "it's going to be alright. Everything will be alright. If I have to warp time I will make this alright. Okay?"

Yami forced what little trace of a smile he could through the ache and Yugi replied with that universal understanding of the same pain.

"I'm Yugi," he reintroduced jokingly but the intent could not have been realer, "and it's so good to finally meet you Yami-Atemu. You can call me Trey. Friends?"

Yami nodded. He found himself laughing stupidly, crying desperately, choked and mumbling and lurched to wrap his arms round Yugi's waist and bury up against him as the pair of them fought the wound that had been so brutally exposed. Yugi's optimism would not falter, Yami knew that much, and God he would need it.

* * *

The air had somehow reformed in the night. What was left of the few hours before dawn and into the midmorning had broken like a dam to give way to a new picture of the world for Yami. He was settled into a grief that stabbed but it carried with it an empowerment, a re-establishment, of reality that was all at once dazing and redemptive. There'd been a rebirth of Yami's mundane existence which must now transpire in an utterly reformed way.

There was in all the wreckage and rubble of Yami's romantic heart a kind of clear, lifted, contentment that came over him in the aftermath.

The anxiety that overcame him as he descended the stairs to where Yugi had eventually slept on the couch, the throb that wasn't physical but ached acutely, gave way in the warm sunlight that was beaming through the windows and the clunking of pottery in the kitchen. The world had woken refreshed and brighter and Yugi had somehow made it so with his way of being. All of Yami's pain, present and attended, did not diminish but numbed somewhat with a childish Christmas joy when he found the young man in the kitchen making himself entirely at home.

"I'm making pancakes," Yugi laughed, casual and smooth.

He was a mother again, a '_once upon a time_' kind of fifties perfect, as he pottered round the kitchen with the flour and the glass bowls spread out clunking with the mixer. Yami couldn't imagine where he found the energy but Yugi's secure confidence, rightness, comforted him.

Yami slouched into a stool by the island counter where Yugi had laid the plates and soaked up the sleep-over adolescent vibe seeping through the air radiating from some combination of elements and slack attire. He had a sense that the house was safe. That Victorian '_Angel in the Home_' stereotype planted itself upon Yugi till he didn't belong to a single set era. Somehow Yami found himself falling in love with the change in Yugi's gait. Everything was exposed to him now: Yugi was Atreyu and rather than decimate their bond it reinforced it as Yami feared it might crumble under the cancer of his attraction.

There was the silence of chemistry and personal history. Yugi was no longer a mystery, he was vast and powerful with a new set of rules, but Yami knew Atreyu and had for years and so now he really knew Yugi as he had been praying to.

He'd been cleansed, reborn, as Yami had. It was all awash until now and now Yami felt they were truly meeting at a nexus of time and space in the physical Natural World as they had in the Supernatural. The dimensions of his life were starting to overlap in a form he could comprehend and it was so very cakelike to his imagination with Yugi flipping the little flat discs of golden flour in the pan.

"Get em while their hot." Yugi recounted the vague mingling of stereotypes to his own lazy humour, smiling, as he clamoured into the seat beside Yami and lay down the warm dough to dip the tip of his knife into the jam. "You okay?"

Yami felt automation come back to his limbs, sagged with mild exhaustion, as if Yugi's glance repowered him.

"I'm a little shell shocked I think." He had the most beautiful feeling that they'd spoke like this countless times before as though they'd been dear friends for years. He supposed they had. "I still can't believe it's _you_."

He had to chuckle. It came unthinkingly like Yugi, Atreyu's, serene morning smile.

"You're just as sweet as I thought you'd be," Yugi grinned something of a giggle escaping, "I swear I feel like we've been pen pals or something. It's been really surreal these past few weeks. Especially, well, being the only one in on it…."

"I can imagine." Yami shrugged happy to soak in Yugi's alchemy to turn the bitter into the forgiving. "It was weird for me thinking my fictional character might've escaped my book."

"You know," he reminded as Yami revelled in how easily his butter knife ran through the yielding golden dough Yugi had handmade effortlessly, "you can be as pissed at me as you want, right? I deserve some shit after that stunt."

"I don't want to fight." He surrendered. The joy, this pleasure, this intimacy with Yugi was more satisfying to his healing than forcing the beauty out of his life and leaving it all cold and decimated with frigid sterility. Yugi's presence was warm and numbing. "This is really good."

"Good," Yugi laughed, though it lacked arrogance. It was that mother's wish to provide sustenance and pleasure to their family that was emitted not egotism. "I must make those every day. You ever need a meal you just have to drop in. I'm usually stuck home baking something."

"Am I allowed to come over now?" He chuckled.

"Any time," the student swore with tenderness, "for anything at all. You're family now."

Yami had that at least. He was one of the inner circle now in this Natural World conspiracy. He was privy to more than most of mankind. Even with all the responsibilities that brought it implied these secret century long friendships he could rely on.

"Hey…" It occurred to him with tight, curious, remorse. "That hunt we had the other night…?"

"At Aperture?" Yugi snorted and it was still mildly stunning to know they'd shared the same dream.

"Yeah," Yami implied weakly.

"You mean when I called you…" he focused upon his plate as they trailed into caution.

"Yeah," Yami murmured, dipping his own knife into the spreads to add a little butter to his plate.

"Sorry about that." Yugi appealed. "It was an accident. I got carried away. It was fun."

"No, it's cool, just-" Yami sighed "-these last few weeks, all the dates, do I…I don't know. Do I remind you of him? Have you ever liked me a little like that? Or was it all just pretend to hurt me?"

"Oh fuck yeah," he exhaled with a weak laugh, "you remind me of Jenzar loads. That's part of why I've always liked you so much. When I was being a bitch, all this lying and shit, did I fall for you a little? Yeah. You're an amazing guy Yami, you're Atemu, you're fantastic and so _so_sweet. If it wasn't for Jenz and the books I'd be all over you. I just…yeah…you know. He's gone and I was so angry at you."

"Yeah I know," that helped somehow, "you love him. I… this is going to sound really selfish but don't you ever get mad at him for not being here? Don't you ever want someone else? I mean he's fucked off for _four hundred years_. That's not much of an accident, you know?"

"I know," Yugi sighed slipping down his cutlery to slump his cheek into his palm. "It hurts so fucking much to not have him here with me. It's scary and lonely and I get so pissed sometimes. I mean, he didn't give me any warning and for all I know he's just…given up on me or something. Maybe it got too much for him. If he did I swear to fucking God I'll…_argh_." Yugi groaned twisting inside. "I don't even know what I'll do but…I can't imagine him doing that and, well, I love him. It sounds stupid but for me four hundred years isn't that long. If that makes sense?"

"It's four hundred fucking years." Yami stressed angrily on his behalf. "Little long to go without a post-it."

"I know," Yugi sighed, folding his arms laxly on the counter. "Think about it though. I mean, I've been round for four billion years right? You're… what? Let's just pretend you're thirty. Look, thirty years is a pretty long time. If something happened to you, if you went missing, you'd hope your family would look for you for as long as it took right? You'd definitely expect that they'd at least not just give up after four hours. It's like that. Four hundred years is a lot for a body but for Jenz and me we're talking minutes. He's just really late by our standards."

"I just can't fathom it," he confessed, "I still don't remember jack before this life."

"It'll happen." The smaller chuckled. "It's taking a while for you but it'll hit you like a ton of bricks one morning and then you'll wish it'd just shut up."

"Did it take you this long?" Yami frowned slouching into his own palm. "When'd you know you were Atreyu Damestaire?"

"I got it in bits," Yugi shrugged, "didn't put it all together till I was about fourteen or fifteen or something… there was a shit load going on at the time. I found these stories I wrote when I was tiny and I know they're memories of incarns of me now but it all came in chunks. I knew about Jenz before I knew about Trey. Before I knew who or what I was I knew I'd been reincarnated a tonne but it took a whole lot of reading and detective work to bake up the whole narrative from First Life till now."

"Incarns?" He snorted. Yugi had such casual lingo.

"Incarnations, reincarnations, you know what I mean." He replied flippantly plucking the juice. "Ryou doesn't remember anything. Not meant to though with his type. Kaiba definitely does. Not that he'll chat about it. Both of them just knew what they were after the hunts started. Everyone just seems to."

"Kaiba's Cobalt." Yami cringed groaning. "Right?"

"Yep," Yugi laughed round the rim of the glass, as Yami threw his head back sighing.

"Fucker," he snorted weakly, "should've known. Bet he'd been laughing his ass off at me."

"Oh hell yeah," the smaller grinned, "he is _so_ smug."

"Dick weed," Yami retorted more at the idea of Kaiba than Yugi, now he and Kaiba had a history as well. The bizarre had become mundane in the condensing of his universe at that second. It was less some grand conspiracy than some old pen pals playing a joke on him. "Fucking Watchers. Why do you like him again?"

"Stuck with him," Yugi giggled stoutly, "jack ass's family now. His brother's nice and he's not that bad when he's human. You know those Atlantians though. Only so much you can do. Reliable though, definitely can depend on Kaiba, now that you're in the circle. So don't worry too much you just learn to love him as he is."

"Or with a bus." He sneered nastily over his fork. Not to any real affect. It was more gossip than true intention.

"I tried that," Yugi confessed, face contorting into something of a smirk or giggle as he tried to stitch up his composure. "When we ran a convent one life, it was _so-o bad_, I nearly lobotomised him."

"Thank God I didn't know you then," Yami chortled as a smile broke through, "you two? Nuns? Fuck me!"

"I cry a little inside every time I think about it." Yugi spluttered round himself good humouredly. "I have been worse though."

"How could you be worse?" The author challenged.

"Well, there once was a whore named Jezebelle…" Yugi began trailing off to illustrate, though he hardly needed to continue, as cracking Yami let his face fall into his forearms and twisted with juvenile amusement. "I _wish_I was making this shit up."

"Oh sweet Jesus," Yami snorted.

"Hey!" The smaller laughed shoving at him. "Don't look so happy with yourself! We've all been a six year old girl once!"

* * *

"Casa del Trey," the smaller snorted lazily as he slid the key into the final lock languidly.

How many locks did Yami count? Four was it?

"You get a lot of unwanted visitors?" He supposed.

"Seers aren't the only things that want to eat me or the only things that can steal bodies." Yugi shrugged dismissively as he threw open the door and slid into the enveloping darkness to toss his satchel on the side table immediately facing them. "Come on in. It doesn't bite. Mind the rock salt!"

Yami crept through the gap Yugi had tightly left, head peeking round to discover said line of rock salt thick along the carpet a foot or two back from the door. Any haphazard intruder who pushed the door apart would disturb it had they no prior knowledge of exactly where it rested in the plush cream carpet under Yami's boots.

He let the door click shut behind him as Yugi kicked off his sneakers. Tugging his necklace over his head to abandon beside his satchel on the massive Victorian style side table that hugged the darkly papered wall Yugi began fishing for his phone in his pockets. Yami felt five locks digging into his back and fumbled with them lopsidedly as light glittered through the stain glass panel of Yugi's front door.

"Just do three," Yugi ordered languidly, already lifting his top over his head in a way that captured all of Yami's focus upon the contorting tendons of flesh along Yugi's navel as the boy's arms stretched over his head without the slightest glimmer of self-consciousness. "I'm just going to pop upstairs and change. Make yourself at home, kay?"

Yugi was already three steps up the carpeted flight, tucking his hair behind his ear, shirt in hand, the small of his back flashing temptingly to Yami over the hem of his slacks as he disappeared into the gloom.

If Atreyu, if Yugi, was like the sea then his house was a fish tank and Yami had yet to cross the preliminary strip rock salt in to it before he was assaulted by the scent, by the composition and juxtaposition of at least five different eras.

The carpet was thick modern fifties cream. The wallpaper had raised tiny floral designs under a thick, inexperienced, application of deep crimson paint. The side table was darkly veneered and chipped, stolen, from some Victorian country manor after World War II. Yugi's clothes, jackets, hung over the thin white washed banister of the staircase and his shoes littered the floor near the door: the regal blue fairy caplet with the fur collar that Yami loved, a pair of knee high superhero black leather boots propped against the wall, a pair of Indian beaded slippers tucked under one corner of the side board, a timeless tan tunic higher up the stairs, a purple scarf, a blazer from a British 60s rock bank…

Eclectic was an author's understatement. It was no surprise then how Yami drifted, bemused and fascinated, through the high ceilinged enclosure of Atreyu Damestaire's mundane life in the soft moments immediately following Yugi's abandonment.

The space was intensely private, it radiated thick plush security, like his grandmother's home while still pulsing with the scent of a religious temple and all of the sunlight broken darkness of a French boudoir.

The chairs in the lounge were uneven: the man's thick studded chocolate armchair, the ladies' little green and white wood and cushion throne, the pharaoh's stolen daybed... Round the covered baulked head of a disused fireplace mounted with a mantle delectably decorated with old ornaments and jewellery. The curtains were so thick they swept from floor to ceiling without ever allowing more than a tomb like slither of midday sun into the lounge.

The kitchen was a time share between a fifties show house and witches' cottage. Chairs form the same manor the side board had been stolen from sat round a kitchen table from the Brady bunch. Dried flowers in varying stages from fresh to mummified sat in the crystal vase. Little pots perched on the counter in a lone one read _Sugar_ in ugly copper while the rest were modern little rounded things covered in pink and white gingham with cherries print.

The cupboards were lovingly full. So much so their contents were escaping round the black, terribly nineties, modern fridge and the French white wash cottage cupboard doors over the counter and steel sink. The fruit stacked on the counter, round the little plastic tubbed flower beds, and the skittles by the kettle compounded the colour till the food stuffs seemed to be growing still. Yami could see herbs amongst Yugi's dandelions, ginger and garlic amongst the potatoes in the basket to one corner, American candy and witches' spices infused in the clutter.

Light electrified here in the kitchen but was distorted through the crystal wind chimes and Chinese paper lanterns which continued that darkened, underwater, atmosphere that filled Yami's lungs with syrup.

There were modern anachronisms lurking like hulking, moored, turtles of course: the plasma TV, the microwave, the laptop, the sandwich press, the towering stack of Disney DVDs, the retro radio…but they felt peripheral and unnecessary contrasting to the point of becoming alien and altogether futuristic as if the modern had invaded a century or so back.

More than any of that however, more deeply apparent than anything parading before Yami's vision, were the books. They were infectious, rabbited, there seemed to be more every time Yami took a trepidatious step. Hulking story books were thrown open on the dining table, magazines sprawled like lovers all over the sideboard, cooking books, penny-dreadfuls, _Trance_, worn leather bound oldies, textbooks…

_Trance?_

Yep, sure enough, one of Yami's original ten thousand first-run prints of _Trance_ sat well-worn besides it's equally bent but fresher looking brother _Lapse_ just atop a fallen pile of Sailor Moon mangas. He plucked them carefully from the kitchen counter and flicking through the pages found the beach library scent of a school yard favourite. Yugi's final year school ID served as a bookmark in _Trance_ and he had written across every page in a tight sprawling script. Gingerly Yami replaced them where he had found them. Yugi had read them. Yugi, Atreyu, had devoured every page of them repeatedly from cover to cover. It was flattering and depressing all at once. The first book had come out when Yugi was sixteen or seventeen. Only a little while after figuring out who he was. These books, these little things, had driven Yugi into a life of vicious, dangerous, seclusion after centuries of weathering the storm without Jenzar. These books had started them on a path to meeting and hurting each other.

This house was mythic. It was an ocean of time, memory and magic. He could feel Yugi's presence wafting soft, bright and warm, like a candle, in every millimetre of the house. Atreyu's magic was a rich, tangible, current which was almost invasive. It fell on Yami in waves he could almost taste settling with a scent somewhere floral yet akin to baked goods.

Yugi's bare feet padded briskly down the stairs as Yami fumbled over his breathing and Yami inhaled deeply as the sight of him glided back into view: jeans with a loose, white, femininely embroidered tee and one of those twinkling-sparkling earrings Yami had so often caught Atreyu wearing on their hunts. Yami exhaled in the moment, head shaking, as Yugi's hands slipped nonchalantly into his pockets during his approach.

"What?" He muttered as if Yami's adoring little smile was mysterious in origin to him.

"How did I not figure out you were Atreyu the second I laid eyes on you?" Yami snorted flicking the little glass bead of an earring with his index finger as Yugi skirted into reach.

"Took a _lot_of effort." Yugi groaned reaching after Yami's hand, "seriously, feel this."

Yami had touched Yugi. He had held Yugi and had felt the solid, tangible, warmth of his human presence infolded in his arms but as Yugi's fingers curled gently round his Yami had just a second before-

"Ow!" He whipped his hand back.

A shiver ran doggishly up Yami's spine and he found himself shaking his head to regain himself. It was like a shock, cold water, that shot straight to his stomach and down the small of his back to the carpet like a lightning rod.

"The hell was that?" He breathed.

"Sorry," Yugi snorted, hand still extended. "Seriously though, it's not that bad, try again."

"No way!"

"Come on," he ordered, fingers beckoning. "Don't be a pussy."

"What is it?" He demanded.

"My core, my soul," Yugi grinned. "Remember? Faens are a source of never ending self-perpetuating magic."

"The Living Star," Yami recounted in realization, "that's it? You can feel it!"

"Go on," he pestered, "shouldn't hurt you big weakling."

"Yeah but," Yami took his digits gingerly with his, shivering at the buzz that radiated in the tiniest part of Yugi's pinkie. "Wow, so, you toned that down for me?"

"Basically," Yugi smiled, shifting a little closer in encouragement as Yami accustomed himself the current tumbling out of Yugi. "That okay? It was a pain to do. Figure if you sensed it you'd work out who I was."

"That's amazing," he muttered mystified, the initial rush was off putting but the aftermath tingled without aching.

"Doesn't hurt?" The smaller checked insistently. "I can tone it down."

"No don't," Yami ordered, "that's amazing. It's great."

Yugi laughed, evidently relieved, hand tensing in an energetic squeeze between Yami's longer fingers. Yami liked it. He liked feeling how real Atreyu was.

"We better get you kitted out," Yugi decided eventually, "set you up with a little more than a protection box. Sound good?"

"After last night," he cringed, "I want whatever you can give me. You got another pair of those silver gloves?"

"Somewhere." Yugi shrugged cocking his thumb over his shoulder. "This place is a mess."

"I love it." Yami beamed. "I want to live here."

"I have bi-monthly Disney nights." He offered flippantly. "Ryou and I sing along really loudly. It's fabulously obnoxious. Come on, we'll try my room first, I think they're in the dresser."

Yugi's hand slipped from his, his warmth left Yami's grip, and it was instinct that ached for Yami to express the freedom to throw his arms round the Faen and press him to his chest like a rose bud. That wasn't going to happen.

Upstairs Yugi shuffled a stack of CDs to one side on the bedside table. He rustled on his knees through the drawers and under the bed as if it was the most natural thing in the world that Yami should have followed him into his room. Yugi really mustn't have held a sexual thought in his head, half under the bed, as Yami took in the latest layer of the Faen's enclosure: a four poster vined with fairy lights clad in thick blankets of a very Tudor print. A handmade blanket scrunched over the blanket box at the end of the bed. Books were double stacked in book shelves all the way to the towel hung en suite door, the silver knifes and rock salt ran along the window ledge, there was even a terracotta Protection Box on the dressing table.

The bed, oh sweet lord, the bed...

The bed where Yami, if he'd been luckier, might've made love to Yugi. He could picture being naked, sheened with sweat and nestled like kittens with Yugi's wiry pale body in his arms. He could picture Atreyu's sleeping face, he could feel him in his arms like he had been just last night when Yami was unawares, but in this new fantasy glowing freely with the magic of his exposed core that Yugi had kept obscured from him till now. He could imagine holding that bursting star and finding it docile, sweet, and precious.

"One pair of silver gloves," Yugi grunted victoriously, tossing them onto the blankets before diving under the bed again. "Feels kind of like the start of a Harry Potter book. Fuck me, that's lame huh?"

"A little," Yami chuckled weakly, stomach turning. "Little bit old for Hogwarts aren't we?"

"Eh, they have a terrible curriculum anyway, stuff em."

* * *

On the front step Yami's shoulder burnt under the weight of the bag as Yugi chattered up behind him languidly.

"If anything happens call me." He ordered strictly. "I'll change your ringtone so I know to pick up first ring. You going to be alright?"

"Yeah sure," Yami shrugged, "Seers don't break in two nights in a row do they?"

"Not normally." Yugi snorted, half amused but largely sympathetic. "Ryou and I are dragging Kaiba to the beach soon. I'm abusing my authority to bring you and Joey in on it. Sound good?"

"Great. Sorry," he sighed, "I think I'm a little too shell shocked to be super keen about anything. I'm all jumpy about sleeping back at my place tonight."

"You'll be fine," the smaller swore, "you've got an arsenal. Just be confident. That's the secret. Unconscious magic remember? It'll be okay. I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

"I know you won't," he groaned, "but what if-"

"Senses," Yugi interrupted keenly, "Yami I'll know if anything happens. Trust me."

"Okay." Stiff, grunting, and lethargic Yami was finding it hard to think in full sentences. Really he was more a mingling of heartbreak, love and desperate anxiety. The most acute desire was to hide at Yugi's place like a little boy running back to his mother's bed. Men dragged their feet however and, as Atemu, he felt a lingering pang of pride to take his sorry ass home. "I'll see you soon."

"You will," the smaller promised, "if not in a day or two I'll be there tonight if we get rostered for a hunt anyway."

"It's going to be weird knowing it's you know." He muttered. Maybe the pain would double or maybe when he was synced up with his truest self Atemu he would be calmer. Like Amar had said Atreyu was calmer over his current incarnation Yugi. Maybe without the influences of the Natural World his mind would be easier.

"I'm the same person either way." Yugi smiled weakly. "Hey, about that other Hunt a little while ago…"

"Which one?"

"When you saved me," he muttered. Yugi's fingers seemed to have curled tighter round the door frame as he leant into the opposing side. "I just…I didn't think Jenz would come for me. It was scary. I've always known he'd come and get me if anything happened. For the first time I just remember saying over and over in my head: _Amar will get Atemu, Amar and Atemu will come and get you_, and then…" he laughed, shoulders twitching indecisively, "you did. I was so glad to see you. I don't know. I just wanted to say thank you properly."

It was an odd overlap. To have Yugi and Atreyu finally correlated into one being with the same layers of memories. It altered so much inside Yami: he and Yugi suddenly had history, he had kissed Atreyu, and he had saved Yugi from demons. It sounded surreal when he switched or reapplied the two names to scenarios he'd associated with the other. Weirder was now, Yugi-Atreyu, almost embarrassed and sincerely grateful for Yami's existence upon which he admitted some leaning of faith.

He loved both of sides of him. Yami was boundlessly assured now that Atreyu and Yugi were the same entity and both its faces were perfect to him.

"I was so worried about you." Yami fell into saying. It came out without pretence or much delicate placing of action. More like a school boy on a date than a man or a Reaper talking about a mission. "I was so pissed at myself for not being there when you got hurt. I'm just glad you're okay. Sides, I guess you already said thanks anyway, right? I mean that was the day you came over and made me the Protection Box wasn't it? Even though you must've still thought I was a lying, manipulative, jack ass."

"Yeah," Yugi sighed, "I still thought you were a dick-weed but I wanted to…I don't know, I couldn't help myself and I came over to make sure you were okay. Even after sending that nasty email. I didn't want to give up the game but I was grateful. I'm not good at being a bad guy spose."

"Depends," he chuckled, "was it part of your evil plan to kiss me at the gardens?"

"Sorta?" Yugi cringed with miserable compassion. "I'm sorry."

"It'll be alright." Yami convinced himself. "Hey…"

"Yeah?"

"Have Faens ever switched Specialists? Has one ever made another Reaper Specialist a Champion?" It was a heavy unspoken thought between them and that was about as tactful as Yami could get. Still, he needed to say it, to air the metaphorical elephant in the room.

"A few times." Yugi admitted though he seemed unwilling to do so given the tightness of his voice.

"I don't mean you should." Yami shoved his hand in his pockets, lost and needy. "Just, if it turns out Jenzar has ditched you, I… I want you."

How he found the nerve or the conviction to say it Yami couldn't fathom but he _had_to say it. Yugi seemed to wither and bloom under the weight of the promise in a peculiar juxtaposition of emotions. It only made sense really: one Prince Charming may be dead and gone and another might have stepped up to the mantle willingly. How should Yugi feel? Yami supposed that, being Atreyu, Yugi had never truly, unknowingly, been courted in four billion years. Atreyu, in his long life, would have doubtlessly been intimate with other souls in the Natural World but they would've, surely, seemed like seconds of time to him and totally inconsequential in the grander picture. What about the intimacy of switching Reapers? What about Atreyu's pride as part of an indomitable pair?

"Okay," Yugi nodded solemnly, "if he's given up then…But I need to find him first and you do know it might be something totally different? He might be missing me too. If he is then you know I can't just…?"

Leave, give up, and stop loving Jenzar Fravoeus. Yami could fill in that blank with plenty of things.

"I know." He promised. "Just, if he's given up, then I want you to know you're not alone."

"I know."

* * *

Yami plucked _Trance_ out of the bottom drawer of his bedside table and plopped cross legged on his bed like a school boy with a text book. At one in the morning he should sleep but laying his head down seemed to only turn the volume of his thoughts up higher. Sitting with the laptop over his thighs now, for the first time in weeks, sent his fingers tap dancing but it was hardly the most effective way to unwind. Anyway, his writer's block may have evaporated but his latest trail of storytelling wasn't getting him any closer to a third book. It was cracking the shell of a completely new egg rather.

Should Yami even write the third book? Was he allowed? He couldn't risk exposing more Reaper Core secrets that was sure. His entire writing pattern would have to change, tighten, but that was a thought for drafts in the morning.

Page 76, Yami slouched with his elbows in his lap, propping the book open with his index finger and thumb like millions of others did every time they picked up a paperback. It had been so long since he'd read any section of Trance to himself in private it felt, re-lensed in his mind by time and new information, like someone else's work entirely.

"_Atemu was acclimatising himself to the touristy nature of the affair_." He mumbled, savouring the slow nearly whispering tangent of his voice. It had been a while.

"_He seemed to have no purpose here. Dream logic pervaded with a pointlessness heavily imbued with an alien foreignness that rendered the popping in and out more like reloading a video game than experiencing a spirit journey. Still in the simplicity lingered the acute awareness that he was indeed dreaming. Plied with the intense reality of the sensation here he found himself revelling in the simplest things._

The coastline of the beach stretched straight to the horizon unbroken on three sides: behind him, before him and to his right where it was vastly deep ultramarine. The mountains swept up to his left, almost cutting the blue of the sky, and obscured any intelligence of a greater humanity outside himself. Seagulls cawed in and out of hearing as they flittered. The wind ruffled him. The scent of salt was tangible and thick on his tongue but he neglected that to absorb himself in the realness of the sand between his toes as he curled them. He could note the grinding of every grain against his skin, clammy, as he stood with his boots in his hands.

_He could have been six, snuck from his mother's towel at the local shore, yet here he was garbed once more in the practicalities of thick cotton armour like an Aztec. _

_The only thing which faulted his vision was the stretch of his eyes and the roving they had taken to as he walked along the rim of the sea soaking the detailed sensation of the water brushing, lapping, back and forth like a dragged blanket tickling his ankles. _

_A rock outcrop sprung up in the sand before him, just ten or twenty feet off when he really took note of it. It was inconsequential in regard to the creature in the water beside it. The water just out was hardly deep. In the mossy foam Atemu could make out the legs curled atop the sand but the creature still occurred to his mind as a Mermaid._

_Dark haired, bright eyed, wreathed in shells, startlingly naked, arm gone almost to the shoulder into some groove in the rock in search of something. It ducked its head under the rim of the rock shelf to try and search in the hole it was currently fumbling and at Atemu's amazed sigh of delight twitched, a startled deer at a gunshot, to him._

_Tangled hair weaved over its shoulders, cupping its cheeks as it turned to Atemu, and its sweeping expression moved from shock, to frown, to an impartial, polite, smile as if a neighbour nodding to a passing paper boy as they put the cat out. Immediately that glittering face, those stunning indigo eyes, turned back to the stone utterly expecting Atemu to continue about his business._"

Yami skipped 78 and 79. He knew this part: Atemu wandered into the wood, Atemu found the monster which was a Seer he didn't recognise at the time and in a panic was driven back to the sea where it almost drowned him. Then the mermaid saved him, the_ 'how'_ of that was vague, more because Yami himself had little memory of it. The pain of the attack, when the Seer had crushed him under it in the sand with the tide whooshing into his ears, was sloppy in his mind's eye.

Page 80, Chapter 6, '_The First Star I See Tonight_'.

Atemu wakes in the Hive for the first time (not that it was immediately explained to Atemu or Yami, actually, where they were) and finds himself with his re-costumed Mermaid...

"_It was the mermaid wasn't it? Unmistakable in the alteration of his design was the same darkness of his hair, the paleness of his skin and the deep royal indigo of his eyes. Yet the mermaid was different here in this light. Here in this catacomb beehive structure where the earth was warm and soft under Atemu's aching form. It was as if in the changing light the creature had distorted like a mirage, pushing its bounds, but maintaining relatively the same shape._

'_What were you trying brave little Hero?' It chastised filially, nimble little fingers ripping off the last of Atemu's stained and torn cotton armour with surprising practicality and strength. 'Didn't your elder brothers ever tell you not to face a Seer?'_

'_Seer?' Atemu mulled over the word. Did it carry a vague familiarity? Why couldn't he move?_

The creature followed his face, every twitch, with the same observant quality of a hungry cat.

'_Don't you know your nursery rhymes?' It supposed warily. 'Hasn't anyone brought you home to the Hive and given you an introduction to your lot in life?'_

'_Is this the Hive?'_

'_Fledgling then,' it laughed. 'Well then; hello little cousin. Consider yourself lucky I found you. Now stay still for me won't you?'_

_Atemu cringed as the sweet little fingers turned in the gaping, brackish, wound contorting his chest where the Seer's spire had lacerated him. The mermaid opened the hole a little where the wound had collapsed in on itself, stained purple and navy and sludge filled round some artery. That sweet face ducked down, tight lips round the burning core of Atemu's agony and suckled in a long, thick, slurp. _

_The creature, mermaid or vampire, sat back, cheeks puffed and spat up the fluid it had sucked onto the dirt beside it where the venom sizzled the earth. Before Atemu could protest or question the pretty face was down again, its lips sucking at the wound, twisting him in searing pain as the mermaid drew at still more of the thick, pussy, venom. It spat twice, then, on a third time what the lovely thing spat up was half blood and deciding it had done its duty wiped at the inky stain marring its lips and jaw._

_Warm, soft, perfect little palms ran over Atemu's face, down his clavicle, down his torso. The touch was so detached in its holistic focus Atemu may as well have not been inhabiting this body in the eyes of the little creature as it traced his bones. Finally one hand rested on his heart, the other over his navel, warm and firm as the beautiful creature inhaled, seemed to glow, and exhaled through its limbs into Atemu. At that tangible heat spread in tendrils under his skin from the mermaid's fingertips. The warmth soothed, it cleansed, the wound boiled into nothingness and through two or three more meditative exhalations Atemu found himself breathing with the creature till all the pain, the hardly physical ache, had evaporated to the gooey security of sleeping in a mother's lap._

'_We'll have them show you around the Hive when you're back to yourself. Your brother's will want to give you a proper Initiation little fledgling Reaper,' it consoled, gently jovial._

'What are you?' Atemu supposed in childish fascination.

'_A Faen,' it answered, 'you may call me Atreyu and you?'_

'_Atemu Pheramora,' the words rolled fully formed off his tongue without the slightest thought and seemed utterly right. That was somehow more his name than any other had ever been. It was true and right somehow he should introduce himself so._

'_A pleasure to meet you Atemu Pheramora,' Atreyu cooed, one hand still docile upon his flexing navel as he lulled."_

Atreyu would reveal his full name only later when their friendship merited it but he had, from the first, been enchantingly aloof and pervasive to Yami's imagination. Transfixing creatures as Faens were Yami couldn't imagine how Yugi remembered the event. He hoped it was fondly but at the time Atemu couldn't at all comprehend what might or might not have been drifting through Atreyu's merciful spirit.

Later he would find out that Atreyu had specifically asked for Amar to show Atemu the ropes. To collect him when he next phased in and tell him the whole beautiful story of how the Reapers came to be and what they did. Atreyu had asked the closest thing to his own Reaper to relate to Atemu how to work spells and how to survive. Whether that was because he deemed Atemu needed special help, being so fanciful and clueless, or if it was out of some sympathetic tingling compassion was still mysterious to Yami four years later. That was how he _really_ met Yugi now he thought to word it that way.

Maybe it was delusional to think he could ever hold a candle to Jenzar Fraveous. Maybe it was silly to still, after all this heartache throbbing inside him, to want to be close to Yugi-Atreyu. Maybe it was naïve to try to be friends but the love which had been burning inside Yami was not about to subside and he was, he would admit, desperate for any way to stay with Yugi. Even if they would never fall in love like he could imagine in half a dozen little day dreams Yami could still love him like this.

It was a peculiar turn. Yami had never been one to picture himself like this. It occurred to him though that, perhaps, you could love a person enough to not give a damn who or what you had to be or do just to have their company. Yugi might never love him like he adored the missing Jenzar Fraveous but Yami would take what he could have. Anything was better somehow than being utterly divorced from Yugi's life. He would endure this bullshit just for them to stay close, just to have Yugi's number in his phone, even if it hurt. Anything was better than no Yugi. Anything was better than fighting or hating or being removed. Yugi gave him a light, a centre of gravity, and Yami would do anything to hold onto the magic of it.

Atemu rippled inside him. Atemu was, he supposed, the deepest truest part of his identity and they seemed to have synced more now in an awareness of each other. It brought with it a profound unity of Yami's will and heart. Atemu, Yami, whatever name he gave himself he wanted that soul that was Yugi, was Atreyu, was perfectly beautiful in his life and he would protect it.

With that though came a well of empathy for the mysterious Jenzar Fraveous. Yami could picture the Champion a little better now in his mind: a man who had loved Yugi for billions of years, who would do anything for him, who was bosom allies with the ever flawlessly moral Amar, who could stand among all these archetypes and paragons and not be afraid but rather could feel at home. Yami pictured somehow that Jenzar Fraveous would be an enviably humble, loving, kind of man. Amar or Seviticus had called him a philosopher, hardly a warrior, and Atreyu always spoke more of his affection than his vengeance if Atemu could make Atreyu speak of Jenzar at all. If Yami met Jenzar he would probably like him too. If Yami met Jenzar he could probably concede who was more worthy of Yugi but until then he would hold on with a reverent respect for Jenzar Fraveous. It wouldn't do anyone any good for Yami to wish him ill.

* * *

1 Anyone know where _Chrino_'s gone? I seem to have lost her!

2 When Yugi speaks about how the others '_just seem to know_' that the Supernatural world is real it's a trend. The only person who seems to oddly not have figured it out after a little while is Yami.

3 We won't get many excerpts from Yami's books but this one sort of replaced our hunt for the chapter.

4 I can understand if Yami's… _willingness_to try to stay with Yugi might seem odd. I hope it wasn't too strange for you lovelies. Again, I tried to go off what I know and when I was young I was dumped by someone I loved so much that, even if she didn't love me romantically anymore, I still desperately wanted her in my life. We stayed best buds. So I tried to pump my understanding of that here into Yami.

5 On the plus side of above: now Yugi/Atreyu and Yami/Atemu can properly get to know each other.

6 The chase for Jenzar Fraveous begins in full swing next chapter! I'm curious about what you guys think: has he given up on being a Champion? Stopped loving Yugi? Been trapped?

As always, hope you enjoyed!


	9. Excalibur and the First Born Son

No surprise this week kids. Damn thing isn't co-operating but it shouldn't be much longer. I'm just wrestling with the final two scenes. At any rate I was dabbling this story and I expected it to be about 18-19 chapters at this rate it's going to be 30+ (which is _hopefully_ good news because it means a whole box of new, special and epic things for you to enjoy that I had hidden up my sleeve! Especially since I don't intend to make finding Jenzar longer rather I intend to give you a whole second arc _after_). Please enjoy this week's entry Darlings~

* * *

Chapter 9: _Excalibur and the First Born Son _

"So he dumped you?" Joey gesticulated dumbly as he tugged his shirt down over his scraggly head.

"Yeah…no…" Yami groaned tugging up his fresh jeans, throwing his sunglasses onto the couch over his bag. "I don't even know. He just can't date till he figures things out with his Ex."

"_Re-bound_," the blonde called in a sing song tone that Yami snorted over however dreadfully tempting. "Come on! Why the fuck not? You get to be Prince Charming: _I shall forever be better than that jerk off._"

"It's complicated." He gestured empathetically.

"You're so whipped it's scarring." Joey taunted wiggling his fingers like a troll hoping on one foot. "You're leaving little love blood stains everywhere."

"I want him _bad_." Yami admitted. "It just…argh… fuck if I know. Besides, you don't get to talk, your boyfriend's a gaping _asshole_."

"He's not my fucking boyfriend!" The blonde scowled. "I think…_argh_fuck this shit! Fucking hate romance! It's supposed to be easier between dudes! There's not supposed to be all this crap!"

"You're coming to the beach with everyone," he pointed out, "and romance screws everything over. You can't have logic and love at the same time. It doesn't work that way I don't care what your unique pants-monster looks like."

"I switched teams on the promise of Bro-ship with sex!" Joey cawed, a little too loudly for Coco's sake, pounding the back of his palms against his jeans. "Now I've got girly Fernando problems! And _I'm_the bitch!"

"Not too late to switch back to the dark-side." Yami chuckled. "Heterosexuality is waiting. Though, just saying, you're not going to find a girlfriend as rich as your jackass."

"That don't sound like you Mister Romantic." He snorted.

"Fuck it," he shrugged, "Kaiba can kiss my beautiful ass. I'm all for you loving him for his money if it pisses him off."

Call it immature but Cobalt had always been rude and nasty to Atemu and now, in the Natural World, Kaiba had taken it further by knowingly letting Yami get weaselled by an angry Yugi.

"Eh whatever," Joey shrugged half to himself half to the expense of Yami's almost-joke, "it's fun for now anyway. I'll figure it out later. Not like we're going to have babies or something."

"Not without a lot of trying." Yami snorted. Had Trey borne Jenzar children? Of course he had. Probably millions of times at that and half of them had probably died of dysentery. Medical science on Earth hadn't protected infant mortality until the last hundred or so years. So Yugi had probably never had a child in a clean hospital in his past four or five incarnations waiting for Jenzar. He tightened his belt, clean denim stiff, and mulled the carpet as he rifled through his things in another check

_Don't think about that_, Atemu or at least what Yami registered as Atemu said, _you're going out with the gang. You'll have fun. Today will be good. Just have fun with Yugi._

"Doorbell!" There was no doorbell more Yugi's announcing of such served as one as he let himself unceremoniously into the house and Yami and Joey scrambled the last few bits of clothing over themselves. Why did they bother for Yugi? Like kids in a locker room when the teacher barges in? Yami didn't know. It was something unspoke.

"Hey," he fumbled, as Yugi darted light-footed into the lounge plastic rimmed sunglasses propped just atop his fringe. "You're a little early."

"Bus was on time." Yugi laughed. "That never happens. Usually the C1 takes me to Narnia. Hey though and _hello _Mister Joey Wheeler!"

Yugi spread his arms out welcomingly at that and a little torn between loyalties Joey shuffled over to take the hug. You couldn't resist Yugi a hug whether he was an old friend of your current maybe-boyfriend or romantic fuck up of your best friend or neither.

"Nice to finally meet you," Yugi was smiling very freely today. Yami could feel the radiance of his core making him glow.

"Yeah you too," Joey grinned, they touched, he swore. "Ow fuck!"

"You okay?" The smaller rebounded, moving half a step back as Joey's waggled his hand angrily.

"Yeah, yeah, just that stupid static-carpet-burn-shock shit or something." He fumbled irritably and Yugi's eyes wavered cheekily over Yami's in an unspoken question the author could only shrug to.

"So do I get a hug too?" Yami called stretching his arms in the interim and still half laughing Yugi practically flew into them.

Yami felt the rush Joey must've that initial zap that was winding, followed by the warm glow he was happy to enfold. The blonde floundered at him, Yami could see, and little glances shooting between them Joey reserved to stick his tongue out at Yami as he gestured up and down Yugi's back to emphasise the author's madness.

"How long before Kaiba gets here?" Yugi supposed popping back down from his tiptoes to the balls of his feet that easily falling out of Yami's grip.

"Just a few," Joey answered, "how long's the drive?"

"Beach is about thirty mins away."

"Better go pee."

"Better," Yugi chuckled as the blonde ducked up the stairs. He was hardly gone a second before he had returned to Yami. "You didn't tell me Joey was sensitive to our sort of stuff?"

"Didn't know," Yami shrugged, tucking his hands in his pockets. "He felt your core, didn't he?"

"Oh definitely," the smaller nodded, "I'll be damned. Wonder if Kaiba knows?"

"We care?" He snorted.

"Oh no we let Kaiba figure all this crap out on his own," Yugi cackled, "glad you get it. _Though_-"

He almost became matronly in that second.

"I know, I know," Yami heaved, "should've locked the front door."

"All the Protection Boxes in the world are kinda pointless otherwise," he teased. "Made my morning easier though so whatever."

The doorbell did actually ring this time and as the recognition passed between them Yugi followed him easily to the front door. He leant into the wall of the hallway and Yami, overcoming mild trepidation, split open the seam of the door to find what he assumed was Ryou.

Ryou was as petite as Yugi, perhaps a smidgen taller, somewhere between he and Yami but more than that he radiated a sort of anxious prim neatness in the ruffled bouncing of his hair and the keep of his clothes.

"Oh!" He baulked a little at the sight of Yami, "hello Sennen."

It was lingeringly friendly yet uncertain and he moved very quickly to speak again, with surprising force, before Yami could invite him in or return the greeting.

"Can I speak to Yugi for a second?" He rasped politely.

"One sec Yami," Yugi answered on his behalf, slipping past the author to take the door knob in his hand and almost entirely shut the front door between Yami and Ryou with Yugi now on the top step outside in the sunlight so the pair could converse.

Yami only got a second or two to regain himself as they began muttering.

"I don't like him." Ryou hissed very lowly. "Who says he's not playing you for another book?"

"Ryou," Yugi's voice was soft but crystal clear in the regal authority of its clarity, "when has anyone _ever_gotten away with fucking with me? Lying to me? You think I'm going to let a Reaper pull the wool over my eyes?"

"No…" the mumble came a moment later.

"He's lovely," Yugi defended, "he's just a little clueless. That was why the book got out. You'll like him. He's wonderful."

"Alright, alright," the other sighed in a heave. "Makes me all tingly and nervous!"

"You'll be fine Drama Lama." Yugi snorted and briskly swept back inside, throwing open the front door and gliding back behind Yami as if they were in some dance, some procession, some introduction of foreign dignitaries.

Ryou clasped his hands before himself, smiled anxiously, and would not move past the threshold.

"May I come in?"

Yami glanced between Yugi and Ryou curiously, dumbfounded, and Yugi nodded encouragingly.

"Yeah sure," he managed, stumbling back.

It was very old, very vampiric, to him that these creatures wouldn't come and go into his home without explicit spell-like permission. It made his house a dominion, made his doorway a threshold with a semi-permeable barrier, and added many more appropriate adjectives Yami's typewriter mind ran through as Ryou wandered in more a cautious squirrel than a fairy prince like Yugi.

"So, ah," Yami paused, "is Bakura coming with?"

"Oh God no!" Ryou rounded laughing but the loudness of his own voice seemed to pull him in, make him start, and he fell back more cautiously to explain. "He doesn't like this sort of thing. Besides, Kaiba thinks he's a bad influence on Mokuba and…well…"

He gesticulated over Yugi who, to no surprise of Ryou's, smirked folding his arms proudly.

"We have an agreement to stay as far away from each other as humanly possible." Yugi elaborated by Yami's flank.

"They don't get on." Ryou concurred with a little whistle.

"That's a _mild_ understatement." The other asserted leaning more into one leg to cock his hip. "Ryou missed his graduation because of Bakura. Long story short when I found him he took a thesaurus to the _everything_."

"And since that particular broken nose we have decided the kids play better when they don't have to share." Ryou snorted in mild exasperation. "They'd be unstoppable company really but-"

"Nah," Yugi grunted belligerently, "not happening."

"See, this is what I mean about Faens," the young man sighed in motion to Yami. "Women remember every nasty thing you've ever said to them._ Faens_ remember it four _lifetimes_ later and they say Watchers hold grudges!"

Yami actually found it hard not to chuckle. The atmosphere didn't seem to deepen in any unfriendly manner rather Yugi and Ryou likewise seemed close to giggling.

"Well if we're going down that route." Yugi added. "Bakura didn't exactly endear himself to me when he burnt me at the stake in 1695 that whole German Witch Craze phase of his sucked."

"It was one time," Ryou grunted, raising his index finger in emphasis. "How many times have you given him a bad case of the Dead?"

"Less often than he so dearly deserves," was the retort, "and for the record I was only evil-tyrant-consort on that one planet."

"Yeah well that was a special case in general." The little wisp shuddered.

"Zaykru Sankuru." Was apparently all Yugi had to say to properly drive home the point.

"Drakasen." Ryou shot back to the amusement of the pair of them. "That planet was fucked up."

"What?" Yami decided to cut in.

"A few hops before Earth," Yugi explained briefly, "Jenz and I went through a very fun, very particular, phase of sort-of total madness on a planet called Murasi. For about six hundred years. He was a dragon-demon war god at one point and I was several evil Emperors and Empresses, sometimes in succession, it was pretty damn messy but very healthy venting."

"Oh just six hundred years?" Yami snorted grinning.

"We were saints for the following four and preceding two!" He defended.

* * *

"Get in the car losers!" Kaiba ordered.

It was stout, unyielding and at first glance totally unfriendly but Yami found Yugi and Ryou utterly ignoring the impatience as they poured themselves over Mokuba.

Knowing the youngest, friendliest, Kaiba as they did Yami could trace the lines of filial connection established between them. It was easy to see how Mokuba hung off them, soaked up the praises, and laughed freely. What was more expected, apart from Ryou and Yugi's complete disrespect to Kaiba's glowering, was how reluctant Mokuba was to cleave to Joey. The blonde grumble at the brush off the runt gave him, the adolescent grunt, but Yami rather expected it. The blonde American was a challenger to Mokuba's private sphere, an intrusion, laying claim to a sibling he had never had to share.

Yami waited, hands thrust in his pockets, as the mingling took the necessary steps. Yugi and Ryou spoilt Mokuba, Joey moved awkwardly to Kaiba to greet him in mild whispers and the brunette slung his arm almost forgetfully round the blonde's waist as they grumbled at each other leaning their weight together. Yami had pictured something like this. He had pictured how blunt and asexual the blonde and brunette would be. He had pictured to the reluctance of the group to do anything constructive till Yugi took the helm and decided it was time they shuffle into the limo.

"They always like this?" Yami chuckled into Yugi's shoulder as they leant into the car.

"_Always,_" the Faen promised joyously sweeping his hand before the author to the open car door, "after you."

* * *

"_Moon Prism Power!_" Yugi and Ryou chorused eagerly from where they were sprawled on the vast mess of interlaying picnic blankets thrown across the sand. They were close eyed under the midday sun, singing, Yugi's mp3 lay betwixt them with a single set of head phones between them.

"_When I'm with you it's hard to be honest. Talking to you is easy when I'm dreaming but now these thoughts are causing a short circuit-"_

The milky sand was pristine on all sides, the sun was blistering but the breeze was chilling and there was something pleasing about the shrill unembarrassed chorusing of the young men given the starkness of the beach.

"How come this place is so dead?" Joey quirked, digging another chocolate bar out of his bag, as Kaiba flicked through his phone.

"Private beach," the brunette grunted, eyes wavering up over Mokuba in the waves in a cursory check.

"_-I need to see you right now! I'm trying not to cry in the moonlight and callings not an option now it's midnight and if I'm so naïve what can I do?-" _

"No way!" Joey baulked. "Serious? You bought a fucking beach?"

"Why not?" Kaiba grunted with disarming nonchalance. "Had to spend another 20k before the end of the tax year."

"So you got a beach?" The blonde gawked. "Cause _that's_practical."

"Blame these three," Kaiba made a little gesture, "shuts them up."

"You are so retarded." Joey snorted stumped.

"You complaining?" The brunette challenged. "You rather go chill on the seedy public beach?"

"_My heart is a kaleidoscope! Rebo-orn! We're guided by the light of each new moon! We'll meet by chance again and again!-" _

Really Yugi and Ryou had a lovely harmony going. They had an unconscious rhythm that merged together beautifully. What on earth were they singing this time? It was cute if nothing else how much gesticulation they put into the dramatics on their backs like a pair of sixteen year old girls.

"Course not," Joey grumbled, "just seems kind of extravagant."

"I have a Blue Eyes' shaped jet." Kaiba deadpanned. "You have no idea what extravagant is."

"Dude!" He hollered. "The fuck? You burn your money in winter too?"

"I could." The brunette smirked. "I could make my shirts out of it and I'd still be the richest man in the country."

"_The stars illuminating the night sky unlock secrets of the past we're ruled by. In our new lives we're born on the same planet. This is out miracle romance! Believe in this our second chance! Eternal miracle romance!"_

"I think the right word for that is flamboyant." Yami intervened casually. He couldn't let Kaiba look that smug for too long now could he? Especially not knowing the brunette was a Watcher, an Atlantian, and the weasel Cobalt at that.

"What are they on?" Joey grunted with a playful jerk of his thumb to the two happy idols.

"Sailor Moon," Kaiba groaned.

"First season theme song!" Yugi called out eyes still pried shut. "_And yet I still wish that the next vision of love I will see is you! _And Season R! _We will be together! Our love can't be broken!"_

"If that's what you want then I

_dare you__ to find it! There is a burning red kiss! A fire tattoo! Our past and future engraved upon a tattoo! I know in one look there is no way to hide it! It's in the shape of your lips, the burning tattoo, and I can feel the pain, go insane, it's Mo-on Reve-enge through!"_

"How did I guess?" Yami chuckled. It was layered with double meanings he knew he wasn't misconstruing on Yugi's part but at least this particular theme song was much more jovial than _FLAG_.

"Cause you're a literary genius?" Yugi teased, peaking through one open eye, beaming.

"Oh of course," he agreed humbly, "new favourite song?"

"This and the _Sucker Punch_soundtrack," the smaller conferred merrily, "you?"

"Ne-yo _Miss Independent_," Yami answered conspiratorially and Yugi, ever shrewd, smiled a little more softly.

"_Go-odbye my love! After the end is where we'll meet! Where there's no meaning! Kicking and screaming! Falling head over feet! I'll never know! So many question lie ahead! Is there a future? Even with violence there's always silence form the dead!" _Ryou sung out clear on his lonesome making Yugi fall into a fresh wave of giggles.

"That's Ryou's new favourite I think," he decided, cackling.

"Good choice." Yami chuckled in joking praise.

"Hey!" Mokuba hollered. "Joey! Come look!"

"You find?" The blonde called, torn between rampant eagerness to gain the teen's approval and hesitation. Joey was always quite aware of being played since his dopier high school days with Yami. Yami hadn't been a nice adolescent. He'd played on Joey's naivety once or twice as came with the gambling he had been prone to.

"A starfish," he answered. "Wanna look?"

Yugi smiled as Joey moved gangly to his feet and with a quiet little nudge Yugi knowingly stirred Ryou who popped the headphone out of from under his locks.

"Starfish?" Ryou intervened taking it upon himself to join in. "One sec!"

Mokuba stiffened ever so slightly and smiling gently Yugi lay back on the towel with his hands behind his head both headphones in as Ryou and Joey approached the teen in the lapping waves.

Whatever mischief he'd hope to wreck on his brother's poor unsuspecting lover was nullified by Ryou's presence and Mokuba was forced to play nice.

"Sharp isn't he?" Yami mumbled to Kaiba mildly now they had a second's peace.

"Which one?" The brunette grunted. "Yugi or Mokuba?"

"The pair of them."

"What do you expect?"

"You knew, didn't you?" Yami supposed. "You knew Yugi was fucking with me."

"Of course I knew." The Watcher scoffed idly only now bothering to glance up from his phone. "My IQ passes yours."

"Any particular reason you didn't feel like warning me?" He snorted. "When it was obvious, to you at least, I was clueless?"

"Yeah actually," Kaiba grinned, "three things. One, it isn't my job to save your sorry ass. Two, that's the first time Yugi's done something like that or that a Reaper like you has been so brain dead so my first protocol is to observe and not interfere. Three, well, I don't like you. Remember _Atemu?_"

"Look," the author grunted but felt all at once totally Atemu, "if this is about the fucking book: I'm sorry. I didn't realize you were real. As a fictional character you're an ass."

"Atemu," Kaiba chuckled, "it doesn't matter. I don't give a damn about the book or that you're Yami and you don't care I'm Seto Kaiba. As Atemu and Cobalt, when we're on duty, we don't like each other. That doesn't change cause I'm real."

"Don't worry Yami," Yugi sighed lazily jolting the pair of them. "Just cause Kaiba doesn't like you doesn't mean you're not part of the family. If he really hated you he wouldn't acknowledge your existence and he wouldn't talk shop with you. He'd pretend he was an atheist."

"Shut up Trey." Kaiba spat to Yugi's keen little smirk. "All knowing little prat."

"Comes with the gig." He teased eyes fluttering open. "We've got quite a gang: a Specialist Reaper, a Watcher, a Faen, a Ferryman-"

"Ryou's a Ferryman?" Yami baulked.

"Yeah, that's why his boyfriend's a dick." Kaiba grumbled. "Fucking Children of Lilith."

"-little Mokie's going to be something impressive if he ever tells us," Yugi continued cheekily, "and Joey well…"

"Well what?" Kaiba demanded.

"Not telling." The Faen smirked sing-song. "I'm going to leave that for you to find out all by yourself Seto-Cobalt."

* * *

Yami had fun. He always had fun with Joey but with the others as well. Ryou was delightfully sweet and eccentrically educated once you got him talking. Kaiba had a tenderness to him that seeped most vividly into Joey and Mokuba at unexpected intervals but with a little prodding Ryou and Yugi knowingly brought it out. The three of them shared something intense yet it wasn't alienating. Yami had history with Joey in the Natural World that the trio didn't share, had history with Kaiba and Yugi in the Supernatural World that no one else shared, and had an understanding of the secrets Ryou did which enfolded him into the whole unity. It felt right, surprisingly light hearted and joyous.

Yugi was, at every moment, the centre of the action in Yami's focus whether he truthfully was or not being another matter. Little Yugi was a master of swerving the conversation and the evening overall to a place where things fell into their right locations effortlessly without anyone else seeming to realize he'd applied any effort. Yami could see now how he'd missed Atreyu hiding behind Yugi's face, playing coy, and making him believe that Yami was the one with all the control when nothing must've ever escaped Yugi's control. It was a spectacular kind of magic which was, at once, his favourite part of Yugi. Yugi's whole being radiated vibes, energies Yami could sense prickling him, that were the soothing laps of a wave from that mysterious ocean. The awareness of it made Yugi totally Atreyu, clearly, and somehow made him more beautiful.

Yami's heart didn't ache so much when they ordered dinner, sending Kaiba's lackeys to pick it up which was an unaccustomed luxury Yami enjoyed, or when they began to close in in the cold. Mokuba half lulled into him, Ryou pressed against one side, Joey fidgeted, somehow Yugi ended up in his lap with Yami's arms slung low round his hips as the Faen leant back into him to make more space for everyone else. Yami was, he consoled himself, part of the coven now which nullified at least some small portion of the pain. He was close to Yugi and whatever happened with Jenzar he still had a chance to win him.

What did distress Yami and Atemu, in the layer underneath, was overhearing Yugi and Kaiba stuff the boot of the car later in the evening. Not for anything they'd done or that Yami had done but because of how it highlighted how ineffectual he was.

"How many Seers did your goons take care of today?" Yugi mumbled quietly.

"Three or four possessed kids trying to gate crash our party." Kaiba grunted.

"I'm sorry Seto." He sighed. "I drag trouble around with me."

"Doesn't matter," the brunette Watcher shrugged, "this is why I have a security detail."

"I know but I didn't used to be this much trouble to hang out with."

Yami cringed. He hadn't felt anything encroach on their afternoon. Least of all he hadn't sensed any Seers in possessed, stolen, bodies approaching like he thought he should've if Kaiba's lackeys had fought them off without anyone's notice.

"I'm sorry," Yami grumbled leaning into the back of the car as he came round from the side. Neither Kaiba nor Yugi seemed surprised that he'd been eavesdropping. "If it wasn't for my fucking books..."

"Well they did give away the true names of every Faen on Earth and detailed how guarded they were." Seto concurred mildly in his matter-of-fact way. "So yeah, if you hadn't published them no one would know Atreyu was on Earth, without a Champion, and no one would be trying to kill him off here in the Natural World. Sounds right to me, good to know we agree, eh Atemu?"

"Shut up Cobalt." Yugi snorted lowly grasping Yami's wrist delicately. "Don't _you_worry about it either. We deal. It's fine."

"It's still my fault. I should have known better."

"Whose fault it is," Yugi laughed gently, "is irrelevant. You didn't know any better and getting mad about it now isn't going to help. What's done is done. We just have to cope."

"You were pretty mad a week ago." Kaiba interjected.

"Yeah because we thought Atemu was publishing them knowingly," Yugi countered, "but he wasn't so I'm not. I was a bitch; I get it, now we move on. I know you love guilt tripping but you and I both know it doesn't help."

"Hey," the Watcher snorted, "I'm just saying what _he's_ thinking."

"Isn't it your job to watch and not stick your nose in?" The Faen half snapped playfully in challenge and Kaiba grinned throwing his hands up. "You just can't help yourself can you? You really have that much fun jerking Atemu around?"

"Whether he's Atemu or Yami, this side of the Veil or the other," Kaiba smirked as he clicked the boot shut, "yeah. I do."

"Bitch," Yami huffed but he couldn't be assed to really be mad. It was surreal how little it bothered him somehow. If anything Kaiba's attitude, Cobalt's attitude, was so familiar to him after their years of mutual dislike on the Supernatural side of the Veil it was comforting.

"Dumbass," Kaiba chuckled gliding past him and Yugi sighed half laughing.

"You two," he groaned, "I swear…"

* * *

The Hive was more active today. Reapers were clustering the catacombs to visit the Gate Keeper when Atemu phased in. He and Yami were more aligned now, more at peace, than they'd been for months. Unified as they were Atemu was still trepidatious to see Atreyu now that, knowing he was Yugi, the Faen would be more irresistible than ever.

Atreyu was in the main courtyard by a sizzling bonfire smoking to the ever present sun and Atemu had raised his hand in greeting when suddenly he was beaten to the punch.

"_Atreyu!_" It was a man, a Reaper armed so sparsely Atemu was sure he was a Specialist, and he cried out upon seeing the Faen before Atemu could speak.

Atreyu's placid eyes widened, drifting from Atemu to the Specialist who came running and in the steps seemed to shrink till he was a child. Atemu knew that here the body, the astral form, reflected the thoughts or desires of the mind but he found it bizarre that this handsome lad would want to throw himself at Atreyu as a mere babe. The Faen seemed to morph as the man ran to him and laughing swept the child up in his arms at spun him round.

"Morphis!" He cooed, clutching the now boy against his bosom, rocking him and peppering the mantle of his forehead with kisses. "Oh Darling!"

"Trey," the boy lulled in his arms, and Atemu was at once somehow jealous of the tenderness with which Atreyu held this Reaper named Morphis.

Yet approaching lingeringly Atemu found himself dreadfully grateful that this time it was a stranger and not Jenzar Fraveous returning to Atreyu's arms like his heart had supposed horribly for a second. Atreyu twirled, half humming, cradling the boy's head, eyes closed, savouring something and Atemu came gently beside him more enamoured than ever by how sweet this creature was. Yugi and Atreyu, one and the same, were two faces of the same lovely coin. What a being, what a thought, what a lucky man Jenzar was.

"Atemu," Atreyu giggled light heartedly, peeking out from over the head of the child. As if Atemu was some fellow villager somewhere come home from a day in the fields. "Greetings to you my friend."

"And to you," Atemu smiled, gesturing over the boy. "Who have you caught?"

"Ha!" The Faen beamed, squeezing the Reaper in his arms like the boy was a treasure, "Atemu meet Morphis. Morphis this is Atemu."

The boy squirmed a little, reluctantly, in Atreyu's arms and the Faen begrudgingly let the child back onto his feet. At once the boy was a man again, a young man however, and red faced and sheepish Morphis presented his hand to Atemu with utter hospitality.

"It a pleasure," he bowed, taking Atemu's hand in both of his as the dark skinned Reaper took his initial offer. "You're the Specialist acting as Atreyu's guardian for now yes?"

"Yes," Atemu tried to smile, "you are a Specialist Reaper yourself yes?"

"Aye," Morphis smiled valiantly, "I am a Knight Reaper. I track rogue astral projections who wander where they shouldn't. Dragons mostly."

"Dragons?" Yami, more than Atemu, quirked.

"It's a complicated distinction but that's what we call them." He shrugged as though immediately embarrassed.

"It sounds like difficult work." Atemu praised. Somehow he rather liked this young man's smile and at the reverse of the nexus he rather wanted this man to like him and to be comfortable round him. "How do you know Atreyu?"

It was biting at Yami viciously to know. Reapers were all of the same cloth however many types of Specialists there were: Knights, Champions, Ferrymen, whatever Atemu was…but he'd never known Atreyu to be very doting upon acquaintances which would suppose this young man had some kind of intimate history with him. Anyone who was close to Atreyu was a fascination to him now.

"I do believe I've rather been a plight to Jenzar Fraveous and he. They were my first parents." He beamed. "In the second life where gender, time, children, death and such were more firmly established they sired, bore and raised me. They've endured me many life times since in one form or another."

Atemu stomach lurched and fell in a kind of jealous admiration. It was unbecoming of him to think it but he was jealous. This soul had been a representation of Atreyu and Jenzar's love in the Natural World and found its way to them many times since.

"You're a treasure." Atreyu consoled sincerely, arms round Morphis' waist as he lay his head against the man's back and all grown the Reaper was taller than him. "I've _so_missed you these past four hundred years."

"And I you," Morphis swore, laying his hand delicately upon Atreyu's. "Have you had any luck finding Jenzar?"

"Some it seems." Atreyu murmured glancing to Atemu. "The Gate Keeper called us to the Hive to share some new information on the search's progress. Apparently the Watchers have found something or at least I hope."

"I can't say I've seen head or tail of him myself," the Knight sighed, squeezing Atreyu's hand as the Faen pressed against him for comfort. Atemu could see in their every gesture the adoration seeping between them. "I wish you the best of luck of course."

"Thank you Morphis." He sighed.

"I must say I'm a little glad I haven't seen Jenzar recently." The Knight confessed oddly to Atemu who frowned at the seemingly indelicate omission. "He's been my father so many times he makes me dreadfully shy. Heh, I oft feel I'll never compare to his shadow, I feel I have to crane my neck to meet his eyes!"

"I can understand." Atemu snorted ruefully and Morphis shared a knowing, sympathetic, nod in his smile.

"Oh hush," Atreyu laughed, "Jenzar has always_ adored_ you. Sometimes you make me envious! Though, then again, he's oft been jealous of how much I love you."

"You two? Jealous?" Morphis chortled conferring with Atemu playfully as he glanced to Atreyu. "I can't imagine it."

"You shall have to try sometime." The Faen teased and seemed not to want to let go of the Knight as Morphis turned in his grasp and pulled the Faen up into his arms off his tiptoes.

"I shall," he promised. "I'm sorry darling I have a mission waiting for me. I didn't expect to catch you here."

"It's alright," Atreyu smiled, hand falling across Morphis cheek as if he were some idolatrous angel or else a lover. "You have work to do. I shall see you again."

"You will," Morphis swore sincerely, leaning close to bring their noses together in emphasis. "You aren't losing heart are you?"

"Never," the Faen promised direly. "It helps to have familiar faces around however."

"Give Amar my love then," he chuckled, pressing a firm kiss to Atreyu's forehead. "I love you Atreyu Damestaire. Shall we be in the same life soon?"

"I'll adopt if I have to." The Faen nodded.

"Good, then I can keep you company." The Knight grinned.

"Love you darling." Atreyu gushed suddenly, as if afraid, kissing Morphis' cheeks as they very delicately tore themselves apart.

"Goodbye beautiful," Morphis bowed as he strolled, "and it was a pleasure again to meet you Atemu!"

"Aye, you as well brother!" He called awkwardly as the Knight vanished.

Atreyu inhaled almost shakily smile becoming more malleable, more fluid, as his eyes shone and collecting himself Atreyu ran the back of his palm against his lids.

"Are you alright?" Atemu asked delicately, reaching to grasp the Faen's shoulder with his dark hand, at once seeing Yugi glimmering through Atreyu.

"Yes," the Faen laughed weakly, "yes I'm fine. It just feels like I haven't seen Morphis for such a long time. I love that sweet boy so much."

"I could tell." Atemu smiled mournfully. "He seems dashing."

"Oh he's always very timid and shy," Atreyu giggled, "always a Mama's boy. Always lacks a little confidence but never an imagination or a heart." The Faen seemed to catch himself and shook his head. "I'm sorry for that little detour Atemu. He surprised me as much as he did you. I apologise if that was uncomfortable for you."

"Never fear." He insisted. If anything his heart leapt at Atreyu's consideration, his care, and the realization, the solid proof, that the Faen could adore beings aside from Jenzar like Morphis, Amar, maybe Atemu and Yami too. "You mentioned the Gate Keeper called us?"

"Yes," he nodded, "shall we see what the Watchers have found in their search to report to him?"

"We best I suppose." Atemu shrugged warily. "Will it be Cobalt?"

"I don't know. I know he's been busy in his own projects." Atreyu snorted playfully. "Watching you and I in the Natural World has been his focus for a while. I think he only just joined the search for Jenzar."

"Should I come with you?" He fumbled stupidly under Atreyu's surprised frown. "I just wonder if this is something you would rather hear in private? I'm your guardian for now under instruction of the Gate Keeper but it is really none of my business. Besides after I wrote those books I thought I wasn't allowed any privileged information?"

"I explained everything to the Gate Keeper. Your name's cleared of that trespass for exposing secrets."

Yami surged with joy, Atemu bolstered with confidence, they'd been forgiven!

"Besides," Atreyu's smile tightened to that battle readied glance of conspiracy, "if you're to be my Champion in the event Jenzar has abandoned the call I should think," he swallowed thickly, "I should think this is entirely your business."

Here too Atemu and Yami, two sides of the same coin, fumbled over each other conflictingly. Atemu had the plain, simple, pleasure of Atreyu's recognition and his widening chance to be the Faen's. While Yami tempered by Yugi, the other face of Atreyu, found himself a little sheepish. Yami was pleased, guiltily so, that Atreyu really had meant to let Yami take over if Jenzar had deserted him but it wasn't an easy pleasure. Sure if Jenzar was gone Atemu would have Atreyu and vice-verse Yami would claim Yugi but this Faen, which was both of them, would be miserably heartbroken if Jenzar Fraveous, his one true Champion, had ceased caring for him or their duty without a word.

* * *

The Gate Keeper was his typical withered self on the podium when Atemu and Atreyu crept into his presence. Atemu felt the waft of power seeping off his Supervisor, God, eternal Father of the Reapers and was at peace to know he was finally back within the good graces of this most important figure in his existence. The Gate Keeper made a little gesture in acknowledgement to Atreyu that sent the Faen smiling and was affectionate even if the Gate Keeper had no face and turned to Atemu. Atemu bowed, low and proud, till the Gate Keeper beckoned him, welcomed him, to get back up to his feet like a father to his grown son and Atemu's entire spine rippled with knowing security.

The sweeping black Gate Keeper threw his palm out across the sanctum to their far right where, leaning against the wall, a stiff surly looking Watcher was standing to attention. Watchers like Cobalt tended to recline, smug and disrespectful, but this Watcher was unlike those Atemu was accustomed to.

He was tall, broad and heavily armed which was a strange paradox. Watchers never dirtied their hands, never fought or stepped in, so to see one armed was bizarre. Watchers were a totally different species to Reapers of course, children of Atlantis as the Reapers had the Hive and the Faens had Sanctuary, supervised by the Leviathan as the Reapers had the Gate Keeper and the Faens had Third Star. They were as foreign a species to Atemu as a fox to a fish so he could not begin to understand why this Watcher was so unlike the others he knew.

More bizarre still was the thick, marring, scar across the Watcher's handsome face.

The Gate Keeper said nothing but apparently no introductions were needed:

"Watcher Timaeus," Atreyu greeted knowingly. It put Atemu's hackles to some repose but the Faen was evidently uncertain in the nature of this visit, intrusion, upon the Hive. "It's been a long time."

"Aye," the man replied with an effortless wave into a bow that was much stricter than Morphis' as he approached in stride. "Faen Atreyu Damestaire."

"I didn't think you left Atlantis." He supposed with that same curiously uncertain frown as the Fairy very placidly pressed his hands together before himself in a gesture that was universally genteel and unthreatening. "I thought you and the other Guardians were still defending the Library and Dartz."

"We still do," he replied with a gruff, weathered, kindness about him. "You need not fear. King Dartz simply wished that I bring you this from the Watcher searches for Champion Reaper Jenzar Fraveous."

Atreyu frowned regally like an Empress before and Envoy, an ambassador, accepting some gift on behalf of the true Emperor currently disposed. Atemu was alerted by Atreyu's solemn confusion as Timaeus pulled something from the ether, from nothingness, and exposed it to Atreyu with a sweeping gentleness.

Atreyu gasped, Atemu tensed though he knew not why, and the Watcher withered, cringed, as the weapon he presented pulsed between his fingers.

It was a weapon. Deep, sticky, crimson shining with the shimmer of metallic sharpness that radiated splattered glory. It was a precise long, thin_, sharp_ kind of tool. Like a lance or perhaps a trident with two uneven points at one end. Standing on its sharp tip it may have been taller than Atreyu and the Faen seemed to recognise it intimately.

"The Lance of Lazarus!" He breathed weakly, hands pulled apart and wavering. He was unsure to accept the item Timaeus had put to him but the weapon seemed to have a vicious life to it. It pulsated strongly ringing with harmonics in the Watcher's hand and seemed to pain him.

"I was certain of it myself when I saw it," Timaeus conferred. "I have never forgotten the wound Jenzar Fraveous dealt me with this blade. I cannot after all. I would never forget its _distinct _qualities."

Atemu watched as with his empty hand Timaeus, for Atemu's benefit, gestured to the scar across his eye. It was only for Atemu's benefit because Atreyu was solely engrossed in the weapon hovering between them. Atemu found it disconcerting. The forms here were astral. He could not image how any injury could be permanent when there was no permanent structures to wound. Unless the blade was as magical as that which it cut perhaps?

"Lance of Lazarus?" He murmured vaguely. He was ignorant.

"Champion Reapers can shape weapons, like a Faen's Needle, which are reflections of their hearts. It takes centuries sometimes as well as a great deal of willpower and magic to create something eternal which will follow them through the ages of their reincarnations. This fine astral weapon is Jenzar Fraveous' and since ancient times it has been deployed to the service and favour of Atreyu Damestaire. If you would Atreyu? I don't believe it is fond of me especially as I am keeping it from you."

"Oh!" He murmured sympathetically, flushed, and extended his hand. "My apologies Timaeus I didn't mean to impose upon you."

"Never fear." The Guardian proceeded genteelly.

Something quite spectacular occurred to Atemu's eyes but the Watcher and the Faen seemed to expect it. As Atreyu touched the blade it coiled, Atemu thought, into nothingness until he found it reformed as a red cat's eye marble in the Faen's palm small, childish, simple and entirely unthreatening. The Faen laughed. Relief swept over Atreyu's body and he was smiling in a shade Atemu had never seen as he tipped his hand to roll the back of his palm up.

"Where did you ever find it?" Atreyu marvelled as, transfixed, Atemu watched the marble become soluble, clinging to Atreyu's hand and sliding over it until as Atreyu's hand settled with its back up the marble had become a magnificent vermillion butterfly dangling on his ring finger.

It, this Lance of Lazarus, had no desire to be separated from Atreyu. Could Atemu ever forge something so beautiful, so enduring, himself?

"I'm not at liberty to say," Timaeus answered smoothly. "King Dartz would speak with you and your bodyguard on the matter in the privacy of Atlantis where we would be safe from prying ears. I've cleared it with the Gate Keeper your adopted Sovereign."

"We'll be there as soon as possible." Atreyu concurred. "Give Dartz my regards."

The Guardian bowed but did not vanish.

"If," he began cordially, gesturing over the little butterfly, "I might observe a moment or two longer?"

"You'd find all intelligence of it sooner or later." Atreyu heaved stiffly with a new pulse of nerves in acknowledgement of the Watcher's request. Atemu found it peculiar there were Watchers who fought and even stranger those chivalrous enough to ask for permission to observe.

Atreyu's hand shook almost imperceptibly to Atemu's trained eye as the Faen brought the little creature closer to his face and with dire compassion pressed his lips delicately to the tip of one slender wing. Loving, a lover's goodnight peck, Atreyu's eyes barely fluttered and Atemu felt himself anxious.

The butterfly, Jenzar's Lance, wavered then was suddenly a red pulse of light and bounced eagerly from Atreyu's hand to his clavicle. Light consumed Atemu's blinking vision momentarily until, when it settled, Atreyu was laughing sweetly. The Lance had extended itself again becoming metamorphic. It could transform at will. It now shielded the Faen from stem to stern in magnificent crimson armour. Atreyu gave himself a rather bemused once over, twisting his arms under his eyes, and Atemu found it stunning. The splendour came less from the armour and more from the joy radiating off the Faen under Timaeus and Atemu's curious observations.

"Is this good?" Atemu wondered stupidly.

"If the Lance can still react then Jenzar Fraveous' core, his soul, is still out there somewhere." Timaeus appraised. "The Lance reflects his heart and his intentions. If it exists like this then so does Fraveous."

"And if it…" Atreyu's arms pressed round his torso hugging himself. "If it would do this, if it's still warm like this, then…" the Faen stumbled a little round the lump in his throat, laughing with relief, "then he hasn't forgotten me. He still loves me."

"Aye," Timaeus answered giving Atemu no room to comment, "but if that is the case then what is keeping him from his duty? If it is clearly not his own will to be apart from you who is enforcing that decree upon him?"

"Perhaps," Atreyu frowned carefully, "Timaeus? Would you ask Dartz to pardon a minor delay for me? There's something I need to check before I'll be satisfied to take up the King's time."

"I will see it out." The Guardian consented. "All the best Faen Atreyu Damestaire."

"Thank you Timaeus." He appealed sincerely. Atreyu appeared to wish to apologise, perhaps for the wound Jenzar had dealt the Watcher what must've been millions of years ago but the Guardian shook his head as he raised one calloused palm.

"There is no need," Timaeus assured in understanding, "save your pity Atreyu Damestaire. You and he repented that ill when you cared for me with your own hand to erase what Jenzar had dealt with his. It's taught me much to take on this wound. I would not resent you or your kindness."

"Thank you Timaeus."

* * *

1 Yep, Yugi and Ryou are indeed singing Sailor Moon theme songs. Ryou's singing the English translation of the High School of the Dead theme song. If you want the versions I listen to its Christina Vee on youtube

2 Yugi's past lives will be relevant, including Zaykru Sankuru, but not until much _much_later. Don't fret too much over them now.

3 Kaiba's kind of an asshole but who doesn't love him?

4 Ryou is Yugi's Ferryman (Chapter 5-6) and Bakura is a Child of Lilith.

5 Morphis (Last name forthcoming~) just for clarification: in the second life time, gender, death, natural, supernatural, the rules… etc. were set in stone. In the second life Jenzar and Atreyu had three children. Morphis was their eldest. They didn't create his soul but he spent his second reincarnation and many since as their child (but invariably he has spent others as their friend, sibling, parent etc) so there's something of a special bond he shares with them since as a Specialist Reaper (Specialization: Knight) he remembers his past lives.

We will meet Morphis in the real world much later, we will also meet his two siblings and Morphis will become a regular fixture so I hope you like him~ You can make all sorts of jokes about Jenzar being a '_Champion Reaper'_ and Morphis being a _'Knight Reaper'_too. I wanted to bring Trey's children into this like Amar and Sev (the other Champions of Earth) have been brought into it. At this point in time, with Jenzar gone, it makes no sense for Trey's immortal family not to support him and Yugi/Trey are very family orientated characters. If you don't like Morphis I can only promise you that he will be a lot of fun.

6 I love Timaeus and the whole Doma Arc so expect to hear more on Atlantis

7 The Lance of Lazarus! Yep, like Trey's Veil's Needle the Lance is a reflection of Jenzar's heart, something he made, and why exactly the Lance of _Lazarus_? Well, if you can figure that out you're a genius and I will owe you a prize

Love you all dearly. Please excuse the massive ramble at the end of this chapter. I swear this fic is going to be the delicious death of me. Hope I gave you guys a laugh or two this chapter!


	10. Waiting for Godot

Hey beautifuls, nothing got done on your surprise this week because I've been having exams and work disasters with state funding regulations but plenty of FP got written (and a few projects for later) so it wasn't a complete waste.

* * *

Chapter 10: _Waiting for Godot_

"I don't understand," Yami frowned, laying his mug back onto the table as he tried to hush his voice in the coffee shop. "I thought Atlantis was destroyed in the second life when the Watchers were dragged out to do their duty?"

"It was," Yugi nodded solemnly, turning over the red pendent in his palm with a delighted focus as he spoke. "Sort of."

Yami was still burning from last night's hunt when Yugi had asked him to meet at that same café they'd meet in weeks ago now. Worse still was the state of his yo-yoed heart in all this when he caught the red pendent round Yugi's neck. It seemed the Lance of Lazarus, Jenzar's Lance, had found a way to take on a physical form on this side of the Veil as well to better protect the Faen. Atemu told Yami they could never do anything like that with the magic they had right now. Worse, much worse, was the knowledge that it was now clear as day that not only was Jenzar alive but he still loved Atreyu and would love Yami's Yugi upon sight.

He steadied himself harshly.

"See," Yugi explained carefully, "when we destroyed Atlantis we didn't tear up the whole place. We left the Grand Library intact."

"Grand Library?"

"The Watchers watch everything right?" He supposed. "Well everything that's ever happened in the course of the Universe, ever, is recorded in the Grand Library of Atlantis."

"Okay," he murmured, "but then who's Dartz? I thought the Watchers answered to the Leviathan."

"He's the Watchers' King, the last King of Atlantis," Yugi explained with a chuckling scoff. "Not a charming guy really but what do you expect? He ruled Atlantis, kept order in the city, and now he manages the Grand Library while the rest of the Watchers gather info across the universe. He doesn't have a physical form on the Natural World side of the Veil as far as I know."

"And Timaeus?"

"He's a Guardian. There's three of them." The Faen rattled off knowingly still twisting the pendent in his fingers as he utterly ignored his own drink. "They guard the Library and Dartz. When we stormed Atlantis Jenzar and Amar defeated them so we could drag Dartz out of the city. We only let them back into the Library, what was left of Atlantis, after he conceded to make the rest of the Watchers get off their asses. So now Timaeus and his brothers guard Dartz on the Supernatural side of the Veil."

"We're not going there yet though are we?" Yami murmured. "You said you wanted to go somewhere else first last night?"

"Yeah," Yugi nodded carefully, "I just think… I think if Jenzar lost the Lance then he must've been attacked. There's no other way I can picture him letting go of it and if Jenzar was hurt bad I think…"

"You think you know where he'd go to fix up?" Yami finished.

"Yeah," Yugi sighed solemnly, "if he's anywhere. I think he'll be in Sanctuary."

"Sanctuary?" The author baulked. "The Faen city? I thought you couldn't go back till doomsday?"

"We hid the City in a pocket dimension when we left," the smaller conferred, "but when we locked up Sanctuary it was only to protect it. We figured if anything ever happened Faens and their Champions might need somewhere to hide in an emergency. Some Faens still go there in-between lifetimes when they have to switch from one planet to reincarnation on another because it takes so long to transition."

"But then why haven't you checked there yet?" He frowned.

"The Watchers wouldn't know where to find it to check and none of the other Faens would have time even if I had permission to break protocol and talk to them." Yugi shrugged sheepishly. "Besides I… Jenzar and I made a pact that we'd be the first ones out of Sanctuary and the last ones back in."

"So you've never been back since the second life." Yami finished.

"Yeah," Yugi muttered quietly, "I didn't figure Jenzar would run off there unless something bad happened, unless he absolutely needed to, and I haven't had any proof of that till now. It sounds so _fucking_ stupid but I didn't want to go there myself without a damn good reason because of pride after we made that promise."

"A little," Yami shrugged, "but if the Watchers know everything how come they don't already know where Jenzar is?"

"They probably do." The Faen groaned. "They just don't pay attention and if they notice something big they don't tell anyone else unless they're made to. They aren't supposed to interfere. They're only helping us now, searching the Veil and searching their Library no doubt, because they've been ordered to by the Leviathan. The Gate Keeper and Third Star probably convinced it to help for the sake of maintaining order. If Champions just go missing shits going to get bad everywhere unless we know why. For all we know the Seers have some new weapon."

"But Jenzar's got to be alive, doesn't he?" Yami sighed despite himself. "Cause the Lance still works."

"Yeah," Yugi whispered, clearly torn to smile or not. "He's alive somewhere."

"And he still loves you." It hurt just to say it and it hurt Yami to think he could be so selfish not to be happy for Yugi.

"Yeah," the Faen murmured unable to meet his eye.

"Why aren't you happy then?" Yami found himself asking however stupid he knew it was to do so. He was baiting for trouble here.

"I don't know." Yugi twisted clutching the pendent in his hand viciously. "I was last night."

"Don't you love him anymore?"

Why did he say that? Atemu cursed foully at the back of Yami's mind and he felt so horridly nasty when Yugi cringed and leant back in his seat, teeth scrapping tightly over his bottom lip.

"You don't have to, you know." Yami dug deeper however his mind screamed at him to shut up. "You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to still love him the same after all this time-"

"Yami just," Yugi snapped weakly, ice tearing through Yami's gut already. "_Don't._"

"I think I get to." He hissed. "You made me fall in love with you-"

"Yeah well I feel just fucking stellar about that, don't I?" The Faen shot back tightly, both fists curled on the table. "I'm sorry. I am._ Trust me._"

Yami bit the inside of his cheek.

The closer they crept to Jenzar the more he dug his heels in. He knew it was wrong to be mad at Yugi, no, not exactly… It was fine to be mad at Yugi but it didn't help when Yami loved him still so fucking much. When Yami wanted him so much hurting him didn't help. Atemu too, noble and proud, was ashamed of them when Yami found it easy to be so spiteful after resolving to be sportsman like about Jenzar. What had he expected? It was low to snap at Yugi like this especially when Yugi's life had been so wrought apart by Yami's books. Neither of them were in the right, true, but lashing out wasn't helping.

Yugi groaned burying his face in his hands, shoulders shaking, and Yami could see clearly how he bit his own lip wretchedly.

"I'm sorry." He moaned slapping his hands back down against his lap as he turned to Yami, eyes wrought, and desperately miserable. "Yami I… I am really sorry. Look, if it would be easier, you don't ha-"

"No!" He nearly shrieked before managing himself. "I don't want to not be part of your life. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

"It's my fault. I kind of deserve it." Yugi sighed tipping back his drink finally. "I'll figure this out. It'll be alright somehow."

"You ever…" Yami laughed dryly. "You ever think it won't be okay? You ever think there's something you can't do or you can't fix?"

"Every other second." The smaller answered bluntly.

Yugi's eyes burnt with intensity Yami couldn't mimic. As a matter of due course there were a multitude of things about Yugi that Yami could never mimic. Atreyu blew Atemu out of the water when they hunted and likewise Yugi beat him. It was a childish word '_beat_', naïve, and immediately Yami cursed himself gratingly-

"Don't," Yugi groaned exasperatedly, "_don't!_"

"What?" He blinked.

"You're comparing yourself to Jenzar again." He snapped knowingly. "Don't. You don't have to be Jenzar, I don't expect you to be, I like_ you_. You know that right?"

"Well it's sort of hard not to." He grumbled belligerently. "Man was a saint."

"Oh no, he wasn't," Yugi scoffed. "Yami, listen, Jenzar's not some herculean superman like you seem to think he is. I can't even count how many times we've been monstrous to each other or how many times he's been too soft or too slow to action. I'm not perfect, neither is he, neither should you be. I_ don't_ compare the two of you."

"Seriously?" Yami grunted. "Not even a little?"

"You can love your mother and your father without loving one of them less." The smaller countered sharply. "Seriously, I don't juxtapose the two of you in my head. There's no point."

Yami was, evidently, unconvinced.

"Hey," the young man sighed testily as he attempted to illustrate himself. "Do you know what my favourite smell is? Not just in this lifetime but all up?"

"I don't know," Yami shrugged, but he guessed at it in his mind's eye as he twirled his cup on the hard wood of the table.

"It's not books, it's not you and it's not Jenzar. Both of you smell great, mind you, but I don't like either of you more than the other." Yugi cut firmly. "My favourite smell is Morphis. I remember how he smelt the first time I held him in the second life. I didn't even want kids that life time but Jenzar did and then I had Morphis in my arms and he was _perfect_. His smell is my favourite memory. I would've killed Jenzar to keep that little boy safe. I'd kill you for him. I'd kill Amar or Cobalt or Joey or Ryou for Morphis. You and Jenzar would forgive me, I just know it, I know you'd get it. That's why I like you. It's got nothing to do with who you are and aren't like."

"Then why can't we just…?"

"Cause that's why I love Jenzar," he finished simply, "he understands every thought in my head. He knows I'm a selfish, stubborn_, bastard_ and he still loves me. I know he wouldn't give up on me if I went missing. He's always been there. I've always known he'd come get me. I'm not going to give up on him. I mean, come on, would I really be the kind of person you'd give a damn about if I gave up on him now? Would you ever trust me not to just dump you? He trusts me to be there when we find him. I owe him at least that much effort."

Something clicked together inside Yami's spiteful mind. The Faen had a way to weave spell binding nets of words. Yugi knew how to mend, how to heal, how to soothe him. Yugi was too, undeniably, right.

"You're a honey Yami." He smiled. "Someone is going to snap you up and never ever let you go. They're probably looking for you right now. You should be proud of yourself. It might not be me this time but if I'd met you first, in the first life, Jenzar would've had one hell of a fight on his hands. No one muddles me like this. It probably doesn't help but I'm not going to promise you something I can't. I just need you to understand it's not that you're not incredible. You're _amazing._"

"I can barely hunt." He rued in a pitiful wave of self-loathing perhaps only because he knew Yugi would prop him up. "I couldn't ever protect you. Jenzar can protect you."

"You do know every Champion is riddled with insecurity and self-doubt?" He chuckled. "Every Faen hates themself half the time too. That's why we're the best. We don't settle. No one else could come close to kicking as much ass as you do. When people think they suck they give up but when Reapers think they suck they push on. That's why I know you're one of the best and, whenever you remember it, I promise there will be a whole world of people from your past lives who probably adored you and there will be ass kicking's you'll have dealt you can't even imagine yet. I used to think I was useless."

"I'm sorry," Yami sighed forcing himself to smile, for the multiplicity of types of stupid he'd exhibited this morning.

"It's okay," Yugi muttered, dragging Yami's hands between his viciously tight fingers. Yugi's fingers were so very unyielding. "You're allowed to think I'm an asshole some days and you're allowed to act like a prick every now and again. It's how this works."

"We'll find Jenzar." He promised, squeezing, giving himself up to facing that future at least.

It came with a sense of selflessness and justice, the idea of putting his greed to one side to pursue what was, stereotypically, the truer side of love. Helping Yugi find someone greater than himself was probably the best a good man could do for someone they loved whether that person be fairy or not. Yami was, he knew, weighted down by that human greed to have the princess for himself and his own happy ending but that wasn't always how it worked.

"We'll deal with it." Yami mumbled to himself firmly tearing an odd, surprised, little smile from Yugi's features as the Faen clasped his hands. "Whatever happens we'll handle it somehow."

"Definitely." Yugi agreed in that ever assured way.

"So I get to see Sanctuary?" He plucked gently his smile strengthening.

"You're going to love it. You big fat romantic you."

* * *

Atemu had never walked out the front door of the Hive. He didn't even know the Hive _had_ a front door until Atreyu was unlocking it and forcing it open with the help of Atemu and four or five armed guards who promptly locked them out.

The Hive was set, Atemu discovered, amongst a vast desert with two blazing suns burning directly above the towering anthill like earthen structures of the Hive which was '_Reaper HQ'_ as Yami put it. The sand stretched, rolled, in all directions across the endless horizon which darkened in gradients to pitch blankness the further away the unbroken view spanned from the two central suns hung frozen over the Hive.

Atreyu grasped his hand tightly in his own pale palm and led them out further into that darkness. The sky tinged indigo, colouring like a blush overhead and Atemu felt dreadfully exposed to beasts in this overpowering vastness. What hid under the sand of his supernatural pocket dimension where the Hive was hidden? More defences against enemies? Atemu remembered the Seer uprising which had been the focus of Yami's second book and the great man eating salt worms seething amongst the Seer armies who tried to siege the Hive. Were any of them left out in this lonely wilderness? They had helped the Reapers then but could they tell the difference, truly, between a Reaper and Seer?

"How far do we stray?" He supposed quietly under the current of wind whipping at them.

"Till we see the first evening star," Atreyu answered, eyes set upon the heavens which darkened more and more with every step they took from the Hive.

"The Evening Star…." Atemu murmured casting his upward.

One foot, then the other, over and over as he craned his neck till his temples ached from watching the slowing tinging sky.

"There!" He called throwing his index finger up to a lone glittering bulb marring the sky with a kind of naïve catcher's joy.

"Home." Atreyu whispered pressing his hand to his chest. His fingers strayed idly over his clavicle as he held Atemu's star in his vision, brushing the pendent which was Jenzar's hidden Lance of Lazarus hanging a heavy red teardrop on his bare skin, to draw out his own Veil's Needle into being. "Ready?"

Atemu glanced, catching Atreyu's smile before the Faen tightened his grip simultaneously up Atemu's hand and the tiny needle glowing in his own palm.

The burning light faded.

Atemu was sure he'd been hit but the rush of a wave, feet finding solidity after being ripped from the security of the sand with the same suction of a plug from a bathtub. He exhaled, crushing Atreyu's hand in his and heard the Faen sigh as Atemu stumbled back into his stance.

"_My God!_"

Atemu gasped unsure where was best to settle his eyes. The grand hallway they had found themselves in was a mammoth construction. The gothic curves of a brilliant white church dominated the shape of the space moonlight twinkling through the sparkling stain glass windows, larger and taller than a man, which stretched to the fine pinpoint of the arched ceiling. It took his fumbling eyes half a second to adjust to the light and realize that the trees he believed to be painted, sculpted, round the pillars were real trees, heavy with blooming boughs of cherry blossoms or wishing stones, which swept down onto the bare morning grass under his boots.

The door way groaned and Atemu managed to steal a glimpse over his shoulder in time to catch the view. The desert miles and miles below them, the Hive in the far distance with its suns, as the doors of the Sanctuary clicked shut like the lid of an elfin box. Atreyu cooed and Atemu's heart leapt with a similar vein of glorious amusement.

"That Evening Star is the front door?" He guessed delightedly.

"Yes," Atreyu cooed gently, "beautiful trick isn't it?"

"It's glorious." He sighed sweeping his irises back over the chapel-esque grand entrance. "Do you need a Faen's Needle to enter?"

"No," the fairy explained with limits, "its' a little more complex than that. Third Star had to make sure every Champion and their Faen could come and go on their lonesome should the worst occur."

"I see," Atemu breathed, mildly overcome by the grandeur.

He should have expected it. What else, what other city but one like this could close and entrap a race of fairies like the Faens? What else would they call home but something so beautiful? It occurred to Atemu what Amar had told him not so long ago. Hadn't he said that the Faens and their Champions had built Sanctuary themselves with Third Star the Faen supervisor? He couldn't picture typical construction for this living hall.

Atreyu's hand slipped from his as the Faen coiled tightly in anticipation and creeping onward began the tentative search into the empty city.

They had barely reached the opposing end of the grand entry hall when Atemu paused, boot squelching, and glanced down. There, beneath his feet in the moonlight, was a sickeningly dark stain marring the plush grass. Kneeling Atemu ran his fingers over the puddle rubbing the sticky substance between his fingers.

He had barely touched the substance when he caught a flash, a vision, on the back of his lids:

'_Trey sweetheart- No darli- Yes! Always! Yes!- I love you so much-_' The voice was richly melodic, ever loving and carried broken images Atemu saw in that instant before he recoiled onto his back away from the stain which where equally majestic. Holding, kissing, crying… snapshots from a flickering camera reel.

"Atreyu!" He cried stupidly as his back hit the ground and twisting the taunt Faen was on his knees in the grass instantly.

Atreyu felt the patch, utterly focused upon it as Atemu heaved from the shock of the vision that had sprung upon him like an electric current. He inhaled, quaking, as Atreyu frowned darkly.

"Blood?" He murmured uncertainly. "How could that be? Jenzar's astral body shouldn't have been able to bleed even if…"

"I saw something." Atemu revealed haphazardly. "I'm sure I saw memories when I touched it."

"Memories?" Atreyu whispered expression contorting darkly as he knelt. "This must be some kind of essence of Jenzar then… But how…? I've never seen anything like it."

"I'm sure it was memories I saw." He repeated vapidly.

"I'm sure you must've." Atreyu assured offering his palm to help Atmeu to his feet. "You look shaken."

"This is bad isn't it?" Atemu concluded bile twisting in his stomach.

Atreyu could manage little else but a scant nod as he tugged at Atemu's hand and pushed on to the door at the far end of the entry hall. There too, splattered across the handle, was what looked at least to be blood and pushing the door gently Atreyu opened the way into the greater part of Sanctuary.

The city was just as magnificent. Half fairy tale castle mashed, stitched, to an enchanted forest which gave it a living, breathing, presence. The city of the Faens gave Atemu an odd mingle of sensations as they followed the sparse trail of blood through its grand complexes and courtyards. He was sure the Faens were still somewhere out of sight watching them, he was sure he could still hear laughing and whispering on the wind through the eaves. He was reminded too of a sleeping castle from a story: the books lying discarded by the bubbling fountain gave the impression that the occupants of Sanctuary were all sleeping or else had just left while the piles of untouched blossoms which had fallen onto the paths pilled over millenniums held an eerily unkempt note about the place. The moon here loomed over head from every window and above every courtyard like a great watching eye and Atemu somehow knew it was the throne of Third Star mother of all Faens.

Atemu thought for a moment that he'd dreamt of a place like this once but knew better…

"The Sacred Chamber," Atreyu whispered as they followed another drip-drab of old blood, pursuing some gruesome bread crumb trail as they came to the great crystal door.

"Sacred Chamber?" Atemu replied.

"Third Star was here," the Faen explained his hand frozen over the crystal uncertainly. "I don't know if she still is."

"But the blood leads here."

"That's true." Atreyu inhaled deeply and before Atemu could make to comfort him the Faen seemed to have decided to gather his courage and push the door open onto the chamber.

Atemu was briskly behind him but winded quickly by the splendour of this private paradise. The Sacred chamber seemed to be the inside of a white, level less, spire shooting up to the moon filled almost entirely with a consuming tree which shoot up so far out of view its leaves hid its height and its branches pushed at the girdling walls of the tower round it. Heavenly light seemed to beam down through it throwing bright, night light like, patches of light upon the grass that here too sat under their feet rather than paving stones. Moon stones hung from the evergreen leaves and pilled against the walls and by the stump were centuries of pink blossoms stacked upon each other.

The blossoms, delicate and sweetly perfumed, made the horrific sight all the more apparent as Atemu came to a lurching halt beside a quaking Atreyu.

"Oh God…" he heaved sickly. "What is _that?_"

It was primordial, savage, the nest of blood and dirt dug out in the blossoms by the base of the tree. Something had curled there for quite some time given the rotten look which hang dankly over the accursed spot and whatever it was had gone leaving this tangled mess of skin, decaying blood and gelling blossoms.

"Sweet gods…" Atreyu shook sickened.

"_Atreyu Damestaire_."

The pair of them pivoted at the whisper Atemu's firm back bumping into Atreyu's as they pressed in together instinctively covering their tails with each other. They'd been fighting together long enough to establish some unspoken reactions by now.

"_Oh my own Angel-Heart…_"

Atemu heard it more clearly this time, the gentle effeminate whispering which lapped the pungent forest air.

"Th-third Star?" Atreyu whispered disbelievingly then, softly, "Mother?"

"_My own Faen._"

Atreyu exhaled thickly fingers grasping viciously at both of Atemu's hands as they remained stuck back to back in anxious uncertainty.

"You're still here?" The Faen murmured awed.

"_I never left Darling._"

The voice consoled and frozen to silence Yami, cowering behind Atemu's face, was reminded so intently of his own mother it was disconcerting.

"Mother what happened here?" Atreyu demanded weakly. "Was Jenzar…?"

"_I don't know._"

"You don't know?" He attempted to fathom.

"_I let something into Sanctuary. It was… I can't be sure. It thought it was Jenzar but it was somehow not. It was some strange mangled force._"

Some _thing?_ Atemu reeled anxiously.

"Where is it now?" Atreyu whispered, fingers shaking within Atemu's own.

"_It left. Recently._"

"Where? In what form?"

"_I tried to heal it, gave it strength, but it was incomplete. I don't know where it went._"

"When did it leave?" Atreyu pressed.

"_Forty? Thirty years ago? Very recently._"

"You're sure it wasn't Jenzar?"

"_Perhaps a piece of what was once him._"

It alluded darkly.

"_I have never seen anything like it._"

"What could have happened?" Atreyu murmured horribly over Atemu's shoulder, gasping round the lump in his throat, perfect little nails digging into the back of Atemu's palms. "Oh gods my Jenzar…"

"_I'm so sorry sweetheart._"

* * *

"Yugi!" Yami hollered hoarsely fist pounding against the front door. "Yugi let me in!"

He was still panting, sweat soaked, from the effort of dragging himself from his cosy bed to rush to Yugi's little house after waking from the hunt. He couldn't erase the mangled nest of blossoms and blood from the lids of his eyes. He couldn't go back to sleep until he'd seen the Faen who refused to answer his phone. Yugi, Atreyu, what they had seen tonight…

"Yugi please! Come on!"

"_Shut up!_" Called a gruff neighbour somewhere down the quiet and exasperated street as Yami's shouting stirred up two or so yappy dogs sleeping in their back yards.

The locks fumbled as Yami felt the chill of the breeze on the small of his underclothed back. He'd barely bothered to get dressed, had he remembered his keys? Had he locked his own front door? Yugi's door parted at the seam and forgetting the line of salt Yami pushed his way in.

Yami kicked the door shut behind him, arms hooking round what he assumed was Yugi and immediately the young man's arms locked round his neck in a vice grip.

He sobbed.

No, more than that, Yugi _screamed_into his chest. Crying himself hoarse with dreadful sounds as Yami's back hit the front door and he squeezed the smaller into him till the Faen could almost disappear in his arms.

"Oh Yugi…" He whimpered holding a whirlpool by the tail as he cradled the Faen's body and slipped down off his feet till he was cross legged in the carpet with Yugi sobbing in his lap. "Oh Yugi, it's okay, it's okay…"

"No it's not!" He hissed tightly, hiccupping, over his own syllables. "It's not okay!"

Yugi's nails dug into the small of his back and Yami could feel the heat gathering against his neck as the little creature grieved.

"He's never coming back!" Yugi mourned desperately. "Jenz! _My Jenz!_"

Yami couldn't take it but he forced himself to hold to some kind of stability. Atemu, that core part of Yami's foundations, propped him up as best he could so he could stand to hold the Faen. Yugi fell into mumbling, crying out, a child calling for their mother or else, worse, someone who might never ever come home. Yami had a sense he was holding all of Yugi right now to his Atreyu core.

"The Watchers have something," Yami compelled, "they found the Lance of Lazarus somewhere recently. It still works. It still reacts to _you!_Whatever was at Sanctuary, whatever Third Star saw, part of Jenzar is alive somewhere and we'll find him."

That didn't seem to help. Yugi was lost in a rift, a sub-reality, inside his head where he'd forced himself to face a dire reality that to the Faen was more dreadful than Jenzar not loving him, worse than the Champion being lost somewhere, the idea that somehow something had destroyed Jenzar as Yugi knew him and in-effect killed an immortal soul. Yami realized that idea must've never been something intimate for the Faen to transpire with. Their souls were eternal and relatively indestructible so to think someone or something had gotten the best of Jenzar Fraveous in some new and horror filled way was difficult to conceptualise.

For Yugi, for Atreyu, it must've seemed like the end of the world. To imagine a Jenzar that had been destroyed while loving him or had become something else perhaps now that would never love him the same way again…

Yami squeezed pressing his lips to the top of Yugi's head desperately.

He didn't know how to help.

He kissed the tip of Yugi's temple, fingers carding through his hair, arm round his waist as Yugi cleaved to him desperately. The child was inconsolable. Atreyu's steely will not to cry had been shattered and Yugi now was letting loose centuries of bitter loneliness nearly shrieking. Part of him had been _amputated_.

Atreyu's magic was seeping out of Yugi in crushing waves till the whole house seemed to shake with agony. Atreyu's pain hit the heavy hung air of contentment in the home and sent it hissing back in the process awakening every nerve in Yami's body as he tried to stop Yugi from shaking. The pain was tugging at the seams of the house, poisoning the atmosphere, and Yami could appreciate why it was best that Yugi kept himself so positive. It was parasitic almost, acidic, strangling till Yami was sure this pain would devour him. If this was what happened to the world when Yugi was upset, well, thank lord Yami hadn't been trying to trick him or knowingly publishing the books…

Yami was driven, starved by his desire to help and fumbling at stroking Yugi's hair and rubbing his back planted a procession of kisses along his forehead. He tumbled like fool to kissing warm, plush, cheeks and the backs of hot, seeping, eyelids round the tears.

He wanted to kiss Yugi, like in the garden, and magically heal all his aching wounds of the heart by fixing the Faen's star on someone new but that would cure more of his own problems than Yugi's. Besides that the Lance of Lazarus, Jenzar's lance, hanging as a pendent round Yugi's neck had pained Timaeus for keeping it from Atreyu. What would the lance do to Yami if he brushed it while kissing Yugi? What would Jenzar's heart's mirror, which might be all that was left of him, do to some usurper trying to seduce his Faen? Yami had resolved not to touch it unless forced to because he still feared what it would reveal about he and Jenzar.

"Come on," he urged, s squeezing Yugi to him. "Let's go lie down. You've got to be exhausted."

"Yeah, right," Yugi croaked sharply. He dripped sarcasm. "I want to sleep. Especially now I know that next time I go hunting the Seers might make sure I never wake up again."

* * *

Yami slept in the guest room when he finally coerced Yugi, sour faced and weeping, to lay down under the embroidered tapestry like sheets of his own bed for what was left of the night. He didn't want to risk sharing Yugi's bed. To invite Yugi into his was right enough but to take the same advantage when Yugi was hardly able to consent to anything was corrupt and Yami was sure he'd receive retribution for it from the man who truly belonged in that bed beside the living star Atreyu.

The musky, submerged, atmosphere of the house had returned by the morning. Sun filtered through the lace curtains of the spare room like light into a fish tank and the chaos had abated somewhat even if Yami's muscles still ached. He wished he'd kissed Yugi but he knew things would only have been worse.

Yami was Atemu now, he felt hardly any different now when he was asleep and when he was awake. It was bizarre but empowering. The two sides of his life had enfolded into one flowing whole that jumped from hunting as Atemu on the supernatural side of the Veil to fighting on the natural side as Yami. Two names but both of them equally just himself in his own mind and apparently in Yugi's eyes. He could carry Atemu's guarded, warrior, morality and strength with him into consciousness now and that helped him stand. If he gave himself the excuse of not being Atemu, of being just human, would he have been able to withhold himself from kissing Yugi last night? Atemu would've been able to hold off from kissing Atreyu either way after all.

He could feel Atemu's seriousness in his casual gait as he dressed. His life was now thoroughly less mundane. Getting dressed had a heaviness he associated with soldiers preparing for battle. He supposed every day was a battle now: Seers and monsters were after he and Yugi and their friends on both sides of the Veil now. Every day, awake or asleep, he could be attacked and every day, awake or asleep, he had a duty to take on as a proud member of the Reaper Core. It was so powerful to have this pride, this place, but so terrifying in its implications.

What about the book? The third book in his series? Yami had forgotten all about it in lieu of more important issues: Seers, Jenzar, Yugi, life and death. Shit that mattered in the grand scheme and not just his life. Could Yami really get away with writing another book? He grunted, shrugging it off, to his own surprise he hardly cared about the books or the money or the conventions anymore. He had liked them but he had a readiness to let them go which felt practical.

He didn't care if he never wrote another page anymore now he and Atemu were clearly one and the same. He had friends to protect, a Veil to protect, and he would take that over all the money in the world. This was satisfaction. This was living. This was what he had been deep inside and always wanted to be as a man. This was something Egyptian in its arcane quality. This was something his old fashioned father would've been proud of.

There was no sadness in the thought of giving up the pen for the sword. Really there wasn't much in the thought at all. Yami carried it with Atemu's practicality and ancient chivalry: the books put them in danger so writing them was stupid and impractical. Who cared if he was never famous again? That was insignificant and just the freedom of knowing that was lifting.

It didn't change the big issue however which was still Jenzar.

Natural rivals in their love for Yugi-Atreyu or not Yami still, childishly, wanted to see Jenzar and meet him. He wanted to hear Jenzar's voice and speak with him and understand him. He wanted to see this great mystery which had so captured the hearts of the people Atemu knew: Atreyu, Amar, Morphis, Seviticus, Denn-Elec, Vegas, Cobalt, Timaeus… Both sides of Yami, himself and Atemu, wanted to be able to hold their head high when they met Jenzar even if they didn't want to surrender Yugi to him.

Yugi loved him too though. Yami was sure of it. Atreyu loved Atemu. Yugi loved Yami. Both sides were there in complicit combination. Even if Yugi didn't want to love Yami as much as he did, even if he hadn't planned it, Yugi did love him and that was something Yami wished he could feel more assured about fighting for. It was beautiful, bittersweet, in its painful simplicity of emotion and complexity of situation.

Was there someone else Yami had loved this much? In all the lifetimes he couldn't remember yet was there someone like Yugi he was truly aching for? Just like Yami was some substitution for Jenzar was Yugi filling the gap left by someone else? He ached, surged, to remember more about himself. Maybe that was how he made this eventual letting go of Yugi less painful. Maybe that was how fate would fix all of this up. Maybe once Yami remembered what type of Reaper Specialist he was he'd remember lifetimes with his own friends and allies and lovers. Maybe he'd remember a lover very much like Yugi-Atreyu but totally unconnected and free. Maybe there was someone waiting for him just like Atreyu was waiting for Jenzar and he had found Atreyu because both of them were longing for the same type of love.

As beautiful a notion as that was Yami couldn't let go yet of an imagined future with Yugi. He didn't want to let go of Yugi. He loved him, right now, for exactly what he was and Yami would've done anything to know he could rightfully call Yugi his.

If he was a lesser man he would've taken it, taken Yugi and dismissed all notions of Jenzar. Fuck Jenzar. Atemu assured him though, at the foundations of his heart, that Yami was _not_ a lesser man. He was a Reaper. Reapers' had honour. Reapers were noble in their dealings with each other. Yami would be noble till the fat lady sung.

The more Yami thought about it the more he thought he could, ironically, write a great third book. He could write something of a higher calibre than the first two with his refreshed and reverent new understanding. It would be less flippant.

He could see the blurb: Atemu falls madly in love with Atreyu as he helps in the frantic search to reunite him with Jenzar Fraveous. Magic stumbles more into his everyday life in the process and Atemu has to establish what is more important to him. He meets a beautiful young man who keeps him going as he struggles with his feelings and then Atemu would let Atreyu go to be with Jenzar as was only natural. He'd let the rightful thing happen and in doing so remember all his past lives, unleash his full potential finally, and realize his charming young man was some lost true love.

Of course that happy ending depended on Yugi and Atreyu being separate entities but in fiction those sort of things were a given to ensure a happy ending. Yami was learning that the fantastical didn't always promise you happy _anything_ out here in the real fight.

_The real fight? _Yami had to laugh at his own narration as he finished straightening himself. Was it selfish egotism that he found it satisfying to be part of this? Was it childish to admit his inner child was rapt with this all being real? Who cared! The man in him was chained by romance.

* * *

Yugi had one leg swinging from the dappled love seat, the other curled foot under its knee, as he leant towards the plasma with a little plastic controller in hand. The music was soft, volume low, but Yami couldn't hear any gun shots from the screen as he slunk round into the lounge to take a seat beside the dishevelled Faen.

He found himself being very careful as he leant his elbows into his knees. The bags under Yugi's eyes hadn't gotten any better, they still looked bloodshot from weeping, and as undeniable as his focus was on the video game was Yami sure Yugi was acutely aware of everything in the room. The Faen's magic was pulled taunt in this room from stress and Yami found himself realizing how much better he was getting at sensing it clearly. He must've been improving his skills under pressure.

"You okay?" He murmured. For the first time in their relationship he felt like the Prince Charming trying to soothe the Princess in need of rescue. Yugi must've hated the role reversal but he made no impression of it as Yami regarded his features.

"No," he croaked hoarsely, "but I'll live."

There was a kind of apathetic death, a shell shock, in Yugi's voice that had coupled with the Faen's steely determination to fight on till the bitter end.

"You sleep?" Yami babied matronly. It was his turn to look after Yugi, just this once, which was a rare privilege he was sure no one had stolen since Yugi was a small child in this lifetime.

"Not really," he confessed, "my insomnia's back in full force. I just can't stop thinking about it."

"Bout what?" He mumbled.

Yugi sighed, controller in hand, and refused to ease the stiffness of his back into the embrace of the cushions. He seemed frozen in stiffness to keep himself all together. Why had Yami ever wanted to protect Yugi or to save him? To see Atreyu, indomitable Atreyu, this withered was decimating and painful.

"The black void." Yugi mumbled as a preface. "I… I haven't been scared of dying since the second life time. That was the first real time I died. I was so scared. I didn't know if it would work, if I'd come back, or if I'd just cease to be and spend forever in nothingness. I didn't want there to be nothing. To be forgotten. I didn't want it to be over. I was so scared I wouldn't be reincarnated, I wouldn't find Jenzar next time, or something would go wrong or he wouldn't remember me or love me or… I don't even know.

I haven't been scared of death ever since. I've forgotten what it feels like. I've been so sure I'd always be reborn. It drove me nuts last life because I just wanted nothingness because every time I wake up again I still can't find Jenzar. Now… now maybe the Seers have finally figured out how to destroy us and I can't… it's horrible. I can't stop thinking about it. About there being nothing or that maybe I'll really never see the people I love again or that I'll stop existing…I just…"

Yugi cracked, inhaled, chocked round half a sob and bit his lip. His eyes pressed shut and inhaling curtly through his nose he shook as he tried to wrench himself back from crying.

"I'm so fucking scared." He choked voice misconstrued by the tears that still wanted to fight their way out. "I've never been this scared. No one's ever been able to take my immortality away from me before. I hate this, I hate feeling helpless and weak and _fucking stupid_. I hate crying! I hate not being able to talk right! I should've known! I should've done something! I should've felt he was in trouble!"

It dripped, not with self-loathing, but that same warrior's stubbornness Atemu shared. Yugi was chastising himself for not being stronger, for not holding it together and valiantly saving the day. Capable Atreyu felt like he'd failed. Apparently even Faens felt like that sometime.

"We'll get em." Yami assured firmly even if he didn't know who '_they_' were. "We'll find Jenzar, we'll get him back and we'll kick whichever nasty mother fucker thinks he can get away with this."

Maybe he shouldn't have sworn so much but somehow it seemed to carry the appropriate weight.

"I will." Yugi spat. He wasn't angry at Yami, wasn't excluding, no it seemed more as if Yugi was hauling himself up with that castle-storming imagery of vengeance. He was fighting to pull himself together and grab onto what was left to hope for. "I swear to God I'll make them suffer for making me feel like this. No one does this to me. No one gets away with this. I'll show them what four _billion _years of experience feels like. I'll find them if I have to scour every inch of the universe. No one does this. No one takes my Champion. _No one_."

Vengeance, vicious raw hatred, seeped from Atreyu as Yugi used it to soothe himself. The shaking, the tears, the wounds Yami couldn't see seemed to evaporate under a cool rush of the tide and Atreyu, Yugi, woke up somehow to himself and was normal again. A princess freed from a broken spell.

"Mother fuckers' better have friends in high places." Yugi warned. "I'm going to _slaughter_ them. I'll show them a Faen core. I'll show them why we're the best. I'll show them why we're still here. I'll show them why no one fucks with us. I'll show them why we get called in to fix up everyone else's messes. I'll show them why Atlantis doesn't exist anymore."

Every word tightened round the room, sucked air from Yami and replaced it with strength as Yugi fell more back together with every syllable. The words were a spell binding vow. This was a covenant, a promise, and Yami had no doubt Yugi would see it through. Somehow this wasn't frightening. This was the Atreyu that never, ever, gave in. This was the Atreyu that kicked God-fearing ass.

Yugi was burning, core compounding with raw energy, and it rippled through the air. Yami could've supped at it. It was fire, spirit, which was reconstructing the bravery back into the disillusioned Faen. Maybe Amar was right that Atreyu was unstable without Jenzar, maybe that did make him more dangerous and sharp, but Yami wasn't worried for himself. Oh no, Yami pitied whatever thing had taken or destroyed Jenzar because Yugi _would_ find it. Just like Yugi had found Yami, just like Yugi had found a new heart-breaking way to make Yami pay for his books, he would find whatever had taken Jenzar.

No wonder Jenzar loved him. Yami felt the bloodlust, not as guiltily as he should have perhaps, and appreciated that furious tempest or calm, nurturing, tide Atreyu was beautiful. Fairy or monster Yugi was beautiful.

Hell hath no fury like a Faen scorned eh?

* * *

1 "_Waiting for Godot_" is an old, obscure, little play they love teaching in English classes about two men who are waiting endlessly for a third man called Godot to arrive (he never does and both men confess they barely know Godot themselves). In Literature Godot is called an '_absent character_' that is a character we never see but who acts in the story and who we know about only through others.

2 The Lance of Lazarus: I know the smart cookies out there are wondering_- 'Wait, if magic works differently in the real world then how did the Lance take a physical form?' _well my geniuses Yugi will answer that when Yami thinks to ask but I do have an answer for you. I will cover my plot holes babies.

3 When Yami is comparing himself to Yugi and Yugi calls him out for comparing himself to Jenzar that's not a typo it's just that Yugi can't _actually_ read minds (I know, I was surprised too) so he made a guess/assumption. I know I do that on occasion...

4 Yugi's gonna kick all our asses.

5 Apologies if I didn't reply to many PMs this week beautiful (especially you Teenie love) just finished exams but now I'm on vacation so bother me all you like.

As always hope you enjoyed!


	11. Cities of Ghosts

Okay Lovelies, you get to be the first to know that the first half of a complete 50 page re-write of '_Greed_' will be up in an hour or two! _Surprise!_ Oh, and just for the those who need incentive: chapter two includes a 21 page lemon. Yes. You read that right. Let it never be said I don't know my audience.

* * *

Chapter 11:_ Cities of Ghosts_

Yami should've been sleeping. Tonight he and Yugi were going to Atlantis' Grand Library, or rather Atemu and Atreyu were, but it was eleven thirty and he was finding it hard to disentangle himself from his laptop. Mind mapping had turned to reading fan-fiction, had turned to writing, and now thirty- no _fifty_ pages in he felt like he was forming some long overdue love letter to Atreyu. His third book was escaping through the cracks in his mind even if he had decided maybe it was best it never see the light of day. Not all the pieces were there but it was somehow cathartic to write the most important central focus of the plot: Atemu falling for Atreyu.

His phone buzzed by his hip, Yami hadn't taken the damn thing off his person for days, and smoothly he drew it out of his pocket. It was odd how naturally Atemu fostered the change inside Yami to happen. One moment he was a cowering author and now he understood he was a Reaper. He understood somehow he needed to be reachable for the call at any moment, needed to be reliable, needed to be ready to fight and somehow he felt stronger. He was capable in some small way even if he was not at all as powerful as Yugi or the others.

_Crashing, see you later when we AP. Happy hunting.  
Trey_

So Yugi wanted him to sleep it seemed. Well Yami had to face Atlantis sometime and sooner rather than later seemed best. They'd already put it off too long. Funnily enough the adventure of another hunt, frightening as the consequences might be, gave Yami and old nostalgic rush of childish joy.

* * *

"Atemu," Atreyu greeted mildly as he phased in.

The Reaper found his feet fast, Atreyu had taught him to adjust, but there was a languid security here. Atreyu was here, everything was in place and Atemu could be assured whatever might happen they could face it even if he had no warning.

"Atreyu," he smiled, offering his hand cautiously.

The Faen paused, blinked, smiled off-hand and wrapped his arms round Atemu's upper arm near the crux of his elbow like a fine lady to be led off to dance.

"Atemu," he murmured gently enough, while the Reaper revelled slowly in the complex softness of the Faen's form against his. "Welcome to Atlantis."

Atemu's eyes were more distracted by the Lance of Lazarus resting as a bright ruby on Atreyu's forehead but at the cue he took in their surroundings well enough. The dimension was foggy and grey infused. It stunk somehow of mildew and disrepair though Atemu could see little beyond them.

They were standing, he noted, on a thick sheen of murky water amongst the mists. Fish churned in the depths which were in patches clear and in others obscured by algae and seaweed and fungus. The water they stood on the surface of, shallow as it was, seemed to stretch out all around them for miles of empty space. There was no sky above them that Atemu could make out. The whole scenario felt as though it could've taken place in an artificial chamber and before them it took some time to notice the looming great shadow in the mist.

Atreyu was barefooted, toes dry, as he led them over the water's slick surface closer to the shadow hunching up in the mist. It became clearer as they approached till Atemu could discern the looming derelict of a ruined building rising up before them.

The building may very well have been plucked out of a grander structure. It looked as if everything else had been ripped away round it. Like the root of an onion clearly pulled apart by hand. It was a sorry vision of something that must've once been quite beautiful. Only when Atemu saw this structure, mud packed in banks against it, bright blue paint faded and copper ornaments rusted green, did he notice the other ruins round them. In the water, here and there, in patches were chunks of grand stone work left abandoned in the shallow water.

They had done a thorough job destroying Atlantis it appeared…

Atreyu's toes touched the mud of the bank but remained clean in the squelching slush and Atemu followed him up the wet ramp to the worn, faded, mosaic paving of the building.

"Who goes there?" The voice boomed as Atreyu's toes hit the tiling.

"Atreyu Damestaire," the little fairy called softly, utterly at ease with his squire of a Reaper beside him and Jenzar's ruby on his brow.

"The Faen?" A beast inquired.

It was a beast, a ragged dragon, which peaked its head through the fog to lean down from the upper battlements to emerge into their vision.

"Ah yes," it rumbled lowly, "Atreyu Damestaire the Faen."

"Hermos," Atreyu greeted, bobbing a little in half a curtsey as he held himself to Atemu. He didn't look any weaker for it in Atemu's eyes rather the Faen seemed all the more fragilely pristine. He glowed in this dark place, bringing life to this forgotten realm, and that radiated power which far exceeded the submission of his stance leaning into Atemu.

"The conquering hero returns." Another beast chortled, distinctly unfriendly, as it brought its own raggedly faded visage into their field of vision.

"Critias." Atreyu answered with a cordial nod of his head. The little Faen was such a courtier sometimes impossible to ruffle with rudeness.

"Who do you bring with you?" The beast demanded lowly. The breath that escaped round its fangs was rank with age and mildew as Atemu tried to fend off a grimace under its consideration.

"Atemu Pheramora." Atreyu introduced. "A Specialist Reaper, child of the Gate Keeper, and my temporary body guard."

How did Atreyu manage to make him sound so grand?

"King Dartz did not give permission for multiple visitors. Your body guard is not welcome here."

"Well then King Dartz will have no one to give audience to." Atreyu answered politely. "I am not entering the Grand Library without Atemu Pheramora."

"Then you can return to the Hive it seems." Critias grumbled, hissed, and a churn of fire could be seen stirring behind his teeth. "Disrespectful creature of odd customs you are."

"Easy Critias." Hermos ordered mildly. "We are all allies here."

"These allies destroyed Atlantis." He reminded bitterly. "This _one-_" he glowered carefully over Atreyu "- is the lover of that beast Jenzar Fraveous."

"Beast is an interesting adjective." Atreyu retorted gently but undercut with an almost invisible sass.

Critias head snapped back to them viciously, snarling, teeth flaring and Atemu felt his back tighten into coils but Atreyu did not even waver barefooted before the dragon.

"Atreyu Damestaire," a third voice intervened smoothly, a voice Atemu recognised. "King Dartz has been waiting for you."

"Timaeus," Atreyu bobbed again, as a looming beast with the Guardian's voice appeared before them. Atemu supposed, after the initial shock, that the knight like man who had visited the Hive was just one form for this beast with the same voice.

"He comes bearing intruders." Critias grumbled.

"Dartz will see them both." Timaeus assuaged simply. "Stand down and let them pass Critias."

* * *

The entirety of the path within the walls of what was left of the building was dank with crumbling misuse. What was left of Atlantis was a faded, dying, relic and Atemu had low hopes with the beasts, the Guardians, behind them as Atreyu twisted the handle of a weathered blue door to lead them into a new inner chamber away from the mists.

Inside the Grand Library was much more elaborate than the ruined outsides gave hint to. It was a vast, vulnerably juicy, interior with an element of plush luxury heavy about it. The indigos, the emeralds, the verdigris, the navy, the cobalts, the baby blues… were all intense and fresh in here. Like a buried tomb the weathered exterior protected, shelled, an untouched inner wealth. The ceiling domed, studded with maps of constellations, high overhead and the books followed the veins of every wall as far up as they could go. The books stretched back and back into long cavernous rows out of Atemu's immediate vision and he could only imagine the full size of the library in its entirety.

"I see your body guard is impressed." It was a smug, eloquent, pipe of a voice and Atemu found it immediately offensive somehow given the hidden sourness it stirred into Atreyu's face.

"He's never been." The Faen smiled simply but there wasn't any true joy in the expression. It was more driven by manners. "How are you Dartz?"

"I make a living." he sulked restrainedly as he shouldered his way into view. Atemu caught him clearly only when he noticed the man descending one of the ivory ladders propped up against a towering book shelf. "It's been rather unpleasant really."

"That's a shame." Atreyu noted but Atemu was sure the Faen had no sympathy for the proud Watcher.

Dartz certainly looked proud, prouder even than Cobalt who was Kaiba. He swept more than walked, swayed in motion, like a ship at sea. It was an elegant kind of handsome but Atemu hardly found it attractive given the snide disapproval that radiated off that smug face. If Dartz was a fine galley at sea then Atreyu was the sea. Then again, Yami reasoned, Atemu was heavily biased.

"I had hoped the Guardians would've made your life here as comfortable as possible."

"Oh they try," Dartz shrugged sympathetically, "but you know how these things are Atreyu. Some of us aren't simply satisfied. Are we?"

"I don't know at all what you mean."

"You have your favouritism and I have mine." He grinned. "Cobalt sends me the most interesting reports about you but you always have been fascinating, you and our good friend Jenzar Fraveous, the Finest Star of the Faens and the Champion of Champions."

"I didn't think you considered Jenzar a friend," Atreyu replied simply. He had chosen very clearly to cut through whatever nonsense Dartz would've like to rile him with because Atemu could tell the King quite obviously would've like to rile the Faen. Atreyu was gripping Atemu quite firmly now and behind his placid expression Atemu somehow felt he was radiating dislike.

"Well after he and Amar Seirramoura defeated my Guardians and he dragged me out of my palace to throw me at the feet of the masses, yes, you could say I did rather dislike him for a while." Dartz smiled simply. "Yet we put all those silly things behind us I would hope. It was such a long time ago. Even for someone with a memory as long as yours Atreyu."

Atemu caught the implication. The implication that now Dartz didn't have to dislike Jenzar hung round them like dank air. This King, and Atemu rued the word, was rubbing it in that Jenzar was missing. _Bastard_-

Atreyu's hand ran up and then down Atemu's upper arm, soothingly, working the urge to strike out of the Reaper as suddenly as it had manifested. The motion was so passing it could've appeared thoughtless but Atemu was sure from Dartz's grin he was aware how infuriating Atemu found his existence.

"How's Christina?" Atreyu inquired sweetly. "She's an active part of the Watchers I heard?"

Dartz coiled and the smug radiance wafting off him seemed to subtract immediately like a dissipating miasma. Atreyu had hit back.

"She's very well," the king assured kindly, "still remembers you fondly. You made quite an impression when you carried her out of Atlantis yourself."

"She was a lovely girl." He replied simply. "No need for her to have been distressed by what was going on or for me to be unnecessarily cruel. Not while you and Jenzar settled your disagreement anyway."

"Hmm." Dartz snorted primly to cease the line of thought. "That's a lovely ruby by the way Atreyu. Lance of Lazarus I assume?"

"Of course."

"Jenzar did have lovely magic, didn't he?" The past tense here was palpable. "I suppose we best get down to business on that front however if we're ever to locate that poor Champion of yours."

"You best." Atreyu cut gently and for a second Atreyu may very well have been the King ordering Dartz to submission. The Atlantian didn't appear to like that at all. "How goes it?"

"Slowly but surely we're trawling back through the last four hundred years of reports for clues," Dartz sighed sympathetically, "but it's a slow process by my lonesome you understand. After all we have to consider the entire universe and both sides of the Veil. He could be _anywhere._"

Dartz rather seemed to revel in emphasising that.

"Oh I can't imagine it would be so hard for someone as talented as you." Atreyu cooed. "You know exactly how many pieces of grass there are on Earth. You're a wealth of information, memory of an elephant, and why not? There's not much else to do anymore here in Atlantis."

Oh this could get nasty.

"Yes, there's that," Dartz snorted.

"What about the Lance?" Atreyu prodded. "Timaeus said you wanted to talk about it with me in person. Where exactly did you find it?"

"That's the distressing part unfortunately," the King consoled but hardly appeared distressed, "one of my Watchers found your Champion's lance abandoned at a battle site outside Tartarus."

"_Tartarus?_" Atreyu snapped. "You're sure?"

"Oh very," he answered grimly.

"I knew it!" The Faen hissed fingers curling into Atemu's armour.

"Tartarus?" Atemu frowned. "Dare I ask?"

"I'll-" Atreyu may have been resolved to tell him in private but Dartz was equally resolved to ruin that.

"You may indeed!" The king interceded to Atemu. "Tartarus is a dimension along the Supernatural Side of the Veil. As the Reapers have the Hive and the Watchers had Atlantis. Tartarus however is where the Seers make their nests and it has been since the dawn of time. Terrible, dreadful, _awful_ place."

"So then the Seers have Jenzar?" Atemu decided conferring more with Atreyu than paying Dartz any heed.

"I'd bet my core on it." Atreyu murmured hotly. "They have him or, if not, they know exactly what happened to him."

"Ah, but which Queen?" Dartz rued over them. "After all the Seers live in distinct nests, attack distinct parts of the Veil, have distinct Queens. Tartarus may be a mess with all of them but only each individual nest knows what happens within its confines. Which one of them has Jenzar? If, assuming, there's anything left of him?"

"There's plenty left. The Lance survives. If it survives Jenzar survives." The Faen decided but offered nothing on the matter so far as more specifically locating Jenzar or on revealing what Third Star had told them in Sanctuary.

Then again Atemu suspected maybe not even the Watchers knew about Sanctuary, the Faen city, and maybe it was best that way. Dartz certainly seemed the type to wring vengeance if he could find a way to get it.

"You always were so very positive Atreyu Damestaire," to use a full name here was a mark of intimacy rather than formality, and in this case a rather insulting assumption. "I envy that. Unfortunately I'm afraid as of yet I can't offer you any more information. I might not have any more for you for _centuries_ yet I'm afraid."

"Thank you nonetheless." He smiled smoothly.

A security had reaffirmed in Atreyu and the Faen was satisfied within itself again. Even if Dartz had bought them here just to gloat directly. Atemu could perceive the change even if Dartz could not. Nothing the king said from here out would touch the Faen, he was sure, but why Atemu didn't know. Atreyu had something which rendered him unaffected by the King of Atlantis' barbs. Some information he wouldn't share here?

"Will you be leaving then?" Dartz inquired.

"I should think we best." Atreyu nodded curtly as if a foreign emperor carried with a glowing kind of pride.

"Would you settle a minor curiosity of mine before you leave? Between old friends?"

"I'll try." The Faen offered kindly.

"Who is your charming body guard?" The Watcher asked even as he turned his focus more acutely upon Atemu's bemused expression. "Cobalt and Timaeus tell me you're a Specialist Reaper?"

"Aye," Atemu shrugged, "I am."

"What type?"

"I don't know yet." He admitted.

"How odd," Dartz frowned, "what is your true name exactly? Cobalt and Timaeus gave be strange answers. I wanted to ask you myself."

"Atemu Pheramora." He frowned and beside him Atreyu was slowly stiffening with a confusion which was evident between them and growing parasitically.

"_Atemu Pheramora?_" The king repeated curiously and Atemu, driven, nodded. "Is that right Atreyu?"

"Yes." The Faen retorted curtly. "Why wouldn't it be?"

"Well because that _has_ to be a lie." Dartz chuckled as if quite uncomfortable with the information. "There are no Reapers called Atemu Pheramora."

"Don't be ridiculous."

"Atreyu, old friend, I know exactly how many pieces of grass there are on Earth. I certainly know the names of every Reaper and, especially, every Specialist just as well as their father the Gate Keeper does. I make it my business to know." He elaborated. "So I can assure you your friend here is either a liar or _not_a Reaper."

"Don't insult me," the Faen snapped, "the Gate Keeper acknowledges Atemu as one of his children. I would pin my life upon his word and I think very little of yours."

"Oh, but he acknowledges you as his child as well and you're not exactly one of the Gate Keeper's kin," Dartz suggested with a faux weakness, meekness, that had Atemu's temper intensifying.

"I am a Reaper. I am a Specialist." Atemu rumbled low. "I am very proud of my heritage and I am very sure of it. So I will not have you insult me or disturb the charming creature I have the pleasure of assisting. If you have nothing else to say I think Atreyu Damestaire and I will be returning to our duties."

It tumbled out of his mouth with pizazz. Atemu felt like to lurch at the impropriety of it but Yami was torn by the desire to punch the air with his fists when Dartz fumbled his own lips open unhappily at the insult. Atreyu was blinking at him, bemused, but not horrified and Atemu, half embarrassed under his strict glower, took grip of the Faen and rather dashingly took head to escort the fairy from the library.

They walked, Atemu's boots clopping harshly on the tiles, out of the library into the fog and past the Guardians into the water where they did not stop till Atemu, heart pounding, was convinced the shadow of Atlantis was out of view in the fog.

"I am-" He pivoted to Atreyu, taking the Faen's elbows in his hands apologetically as he stuttered.

"No! No!" Atreyu laughed, taking his cheeks into delicately soft hands, bringing their noses together as he giggled. "Don't you apologise! That was wonderful! If you hadn't done that I would've slapped him!"

"I'm still…" Atemu laughed, unable to finish despite himself, arms slipping round Atreyu to draw the Faen up against him. The fairy tossed its arms round his neck and pressed warmly into him as Atemu buried his face in the soft locks of hair. "He deserved it. How dare he insult you like that?"

"How dare he insult _you_." Atreyu reminded pushing back, grinning, hands clasped round Atemu's firm biceps through the cotton armour which was as light and flexible as the Aztecs' had been. "That was marvellous. Weren't you frightened of him? He's powerful."

"I don't care," he scoffed, "what's he going to do? You're not afraid of him are you?"

"Certainly not," Atreyu snorted amiably, "but I'm older and stronger than you. You don't have to defend anyone's honour."

"Never mind that relic or his crumbling palace!" He dismissed jovially. "I have my suspicions you may know where Jenzar is now?"

"Oh I do," Atreyu beamed, "but not here. The Guardians have far reaching hearing. I'll tell you later."

"Do you think he's alright?"

Atreyu's smile twisted, became more complex, eyes darkening as he tightened in Atemu's arms in the struggle of conflicting emotions.

"I don't know," he admitted, "but I will find him or at least what happened to him. I'll avenge him. I want to believe though that he's still waiting for me somewhere."

"Even if only a tiny portion of him survives I'm sure it is," Atemu consoled, because truly he could believe it. He would fight on living for Atreyu. He could only assume Jenzar, who knew all the Faens secrets, would always do so. "What about Dartz' nonsense about my not being a Reaper?"

"Mind that even less," he snorted, "Watchers can lie too. I wouldn't trust Dartz as far as I could hurl him. The Gate Keeper knows all his children, they can't lie to him, and if you weren't a Reaper he would know instantly. You are a Reaper and you're a _damn_ fine one too."

There was passion in that, a kind of passion he normally associated with Atreyu's Yugi face but here the Faen revelled with him and, in its own way, adored him as he was. Maybe he wasn't Jenzar but Atreyu still favoured him Atemu could see in that smile. He had known what the Faen was feeling in that Library, he knew Atreyu's energy, and he was getting better at this without much notice.

* * *

"Tell me everything." Yami demanded as he hit Yugi's couch.

The Faen laid their bounty of snacks over the misused little coffee table and lowered the volume of the DVD player as _Hercules_ scrolled past the opening credits. He collapsed beside Yami easily enough and fished under the couch for a shoe box filled with knick knacks.

How many times in the past few weeks had Yami done this, just dropped his nonsense to stride over to Yugi's place or to his front door to let the Faen into his? How many secluded coffee shops had they sat in by now? How easy and natural it had become for him was astounding. Even without the right to kiss Yugi he had found intimacy that merged the fractions of his life and made the yo-yoing capable.

"Cassidia." The Faen declared simply. "Jenzar and I were sure she was the Seer Queen watching over Earth. The Seer Queens like to divide up planets like that amongst themselves so they can claim all the glory for themselves if they cause a tear in the Veil, or real chaos, or hurt a Faen. They're rarely good at sticking to rules but the Seers are so greedy for glory they usually fight off other Queens who stick their noses in their business."

Yugi had found a stack of cards and was shuffling them.

"We had a close run in with her in 48BC when she organised a little chaos and burnt down the Library of Alexandria."

"Alexandria…" Yami frowned. "Why am I remembering that?"

"Because," Yugi grinned, "the Seer who attacked your house said it knew me from Alexandria. Said it; '_cut me in the river'_. It's got to be one of Cassidia's pawns. Which means she's the one coming down hard on me and she's probably the one who's got Jenzar."

"What happened in Alexandria exactly?" Yami couldn't pass up a good story.

"One of our past lives," Yugi answered. "Egypt was under Roman rule at that stage under the Ptolemaic dynasty. Jenzar and I were in Alexandria when Julius Caesar visited. He had a diplomatic accident and burnt the library and half the city down. We were lucky to get out alive and the Seers, who were amassing there, didn't make it any easier. A couple of them tried to drown me in the Nile with possessed bodies. They let slip who's name they were working under the banner of and Jenzar and I figured Cassidia had Earth under her roster this time."

"In 48BC?"

"Doesn't often take us long to figure out which Seers we're fighting around," Yugi shrugged, "on some planets we destroy one Queen and another nest takes over. It happened three or four times on Murasi when Jenzar and I went crazy for six hundred years."

"So Cassidia is in-charge of the Seers clustering round Earth?" He summarised briefly. "Ever had her before?"

"Ever played Astral tango with her?" Yugi snorted. "No. Seviticus has though."

"What was she like?"

"I don't know. Seviticus and I haven't ever talked about it." He confessed mildly. "That's where these come in."

"Playing cards?"

"Tarot cards." He corrected cheekily flashing the long thin deck of cards towards Yami. "They're a staple for Goth chicks and high school sleep overs. Like Oujia Boards. I _hate_them, just like I hate fortune tellers, but they're useful."

"Oh?" He grinned. "Am I getting another Supernatural 101 from Yugi del Trey?"

"Yep," the smaller chuckled, cutting the deck. "I pour my energy into them, sync them with me, and then connect them with myself and the Gate Keeper so that he and I can have a proper discussion while I'm awake rather than waiting to go to sleep."

"You can do that?" Yami baulked. "I just thought..."

"So did I for ages," Yugi grinned, "but this is a really good way to talk to him while being conscious. You can just tap them into the Veil as well and get a good litmus test for how everything is and what kind of hunts you might get called up for soon or if everything is peaceful. It never is but I digress. It's no future vision or anything ridiculously solid like that but it's a good way to chat or get a vibe for what's going on. Like checking the oil in your car I guess."

"That is perhaps _the_most unromantic way you could have thought of to describe your magical dealings with a God." He chastised breaking into a breaming Cheshire grin. "I dig it. So are you going to call Seviticus?"

"Not allowed to have direct contact with him except in emergencies because he has a Faen and I'm not allowed to have contact with the other Faens full stop." Yugi sighed. "_But_ the Gate Keeper should be up to speed on Cassidia enough to give us some info. We'll hit him up."

"Wouldn't an Oujia board work better?" Yami pondered. "You get letters that way."

"Too much hassle and I hate the damn things with a _burning_ passion." The smaller shrugged honestly. "They're so naïve and nasty. Only the weakest creatures need a board to talk to humans and only the most bored, malicious, ones bother to chat. They lie through their teeth and they hurt anyone who talks to then. Oujia boards just invite wickedness. Call me Christian or something but I just…_ick_…"

Yugi shuddered a little for dramatic effect, to drive home the point, and leaning into his knees and elbows Yami let it slide like water rolling off a duck's back. Yugi was the expert in these matters and by now Yami trusted him implicitly to keep them from falling off the rails. So he let Yugi sit on the carpet between the coffee table and the sofa and hold the deck to his chest.

Yugi closed his eyes, inhaled, kissed the deck, seemed to focus and breathe directly. Yami listened, he waited, he felt more than what he could see and he could feel Yugi channelling his energy and tugging at strings around them. Beneath the daily magic covering Yugi's home Yami could feel the Faen tug at the strings of bigger forces.

"Who are you?" Yugi asked and with the deck in his lap dealt three cards to the table.

"Three?"

"Gives us a better picture of who we're talking to," Yugi whispered as he flipped them, he hummed a little to himself as he traced the illustrations and smiled. "Gate Keeper."

"How can you be sure?" Yami frowned.

"Look at them," the smaller gestured, "_the Sun, Justice _and_ King of Swords_. Who's the father of the entire knight like race of Reapers, Champions, who enforce justice and who rules from a castle under a never sleeping sun?"

"The Gate Keeper," he chuckled, exhaled to his own amazement in realization.

"Bingo," Yugi winked, refocusing as he shuffled the deck lovingly once more. "Now then, Atemu and I saw Dartz. The Seers might have Jenzar or what's left of him. We think its Queen Cassidia. You copy?"

_Judgement_ was laid on the table and satisfied Yugi continued his conversation under Yami's watchful, childishly amused, eye. It was like reading runes, tea leaves, because as the Gate Keeper couldn't speak he could only guide the cards with the appropriate messages for their eyes to decode.

"How bad is she? I've never had her before. I'm not sure what I'm in for."

Yugi laid three cards out now to, Yami supposed, garner a better picture of the Gate Keeper's answer. To better see the tone and the nature of the response.

_The Empress_ was the first card Yugi flipped on the little table then _Death_ and, finally, _The Tower_.

"That sounds pretty bad?" Yami guessed and nodding idly Yugi gathered up the cards to shuffle more languidly as he frowned.

"She's been after me here in the Natural World as well."

_Ace of Swords_ and _The Star_ sat on opposing sides of _The Lovers_.

If Cassidia had Jenzar then it was only natural she should seek out Atreyu knowing he was vulnerable.

"I know," Yugi sighed as if he could hear the Gate Keeper. "She must've had Jenzar these past four hundred years and been trying to figure out my true name so she could find me. Knowing our magic but not our names would've left her in the dark to finding me. The books must've tipped her off."

Almost distantly, thoughtlessly, Yugi drew again from the constantly shuffling deck.

_The Fool_ and _Wheel of Fortune_

Yami didn't need a translator to know that was directed at him. By chance, by a lack of memory or knowledge, Yami had unknowingly exposed all their secrets and spread their cards before the Seers. Seers who, while aware Jenzar's Earth bound was unprotected, had not known his true name to summon till now. With Yugi's true name then exposed they'd been able to find him and attack him.

_Temperance_ was laid out next, after another shuffle, and Yugi cast Yami's blink a knowingly soft smile.

"He can feel you getting depressed." Yugi reminded before turning back to the deck. "So what do we do? We're almost sure it's Cassidia and that they at least have what _was _Jenzar. If the Lance is right he's still alive. We have to rescue him."

Yugi laid six cards next, one on top of the other, and nearly, in the back of his ear drums like pressing a shell to his ear, Yami was sure he almost heard the Gate Keepers voice narrate the symbols:

_The Hanged Man_- Jenzar the prisoner was acknowledged.

_The World_- the Veil and its need for peace and protection was prefaced.

_The Tower_- if they rushed in to save Jenzar and lost Yugi-Atreyu then everyone would be in danger.

_Strength_- seemed to be the Gate Keeper's way of comforting them, of urging Yugi to hold on a little bit longer, while they came to a solution.

_The Hermit_- for now Yami and Yugi would have to lay low and quite.

_The Chariot_- and then, when they were ready with a plan, the Gate Keeper would let them off into battle.

"I…" Yugi mumbled. "I don't know if I can manage like this much longer. I don't feel like me anymore."

_The Moon_.

Protection, love, Third-Star… everything the moon had ever meant to Yugi, that he had explained to Yami, the Gate Keeper seemed to beautifully comprehend with a Father's necessity and stern appreciation. The Gate Keeper knew Yugi was hurting but had faith in his ability to endure and would offer the reassurance that even now the Faen was not alone. Somehow, even as an author, Yami found the absence of human words more powerful in conveying the message which was like hieroglyphs to the Ancient Egyptians from their God. Silent but present like the presence of the Gate Keeper over them.

"We'll save him though," the Faen whispered, "we'll pay them back?"

_Justice_.

Smiling Yugi gathered the cards back together and pressed them to his lips a second time.

"Thank you." He whispered, eyes fluttering, and a string cut somewhere around them. The shadow of the Gate Keeper which had been hanging over them dissipated into dull background noise as if a song had ended and the air had refilled with silence.

"We've got to lay low," Yami sighed, itchy. "What do you want to do?"

"What do you mean?" He blinked.

"I don't think anyone would be too surprised if we flew the coop and stormed the nest on our own." He shrugged gracelessly.

"You'd come with me?" Yugi frowned. "Leap off into danger and get your ass kicked with me?"

"Of course I would." Atemu was very strong at the surface of Yami right now as he leant into his knees and twisting his legs on the carpet Yugi's face came very close to his. There iron in Yami somewhere, strength, that came with the Supernatural calm he usually only felt when he was sleeping. It was the peace of certainty and self-confidence that carried fearlessness on its shoulders inside Yami's heart.

"Wouldn't make you," the smaller promised gently, running his fingertips over Yami's cheek affectionately thumb brushing the raised arch of the bone.

"You'd take me with you though?" Yami checked, grasping the wrist. "You're not just going to run off without me all guns blazing or something?"

"That'd be brain tumour levels of stupid." Yugi conceded good humouredly. "I might in another hundred years or I might've a couple billion ago, yonks ago, when I was young and really stupid but I trust the Gate Keeper. He'll get Jenzar back if there's any way to get him back. I'm not dumb enough to fuck it all up."

"No big romantic lunge into danger then." He teased despite himself chuckling. "Darn."

"Got to be careful," the Faen shrugged, drawing his hand away. "If I fuck this up we might lose Jenzar for good if he is alive somewhere. Sides it's not like I want to get you destroyed with me."

"Hey, Yugi," he rolled over the syllables delicately and found himself startlingly honest. It was easy. "I started writing the third book."

Delicate brows furrowed over the coffee table as Yugi packed the cards back into their shoebox and, carefully reluctant, the Faen glanced back to him.

"Yeah?" He murmured warily. Yugi wasn't pleased by the concept, Yami had just rubbed him the wrong way with its mention he was sure, but he wasn't angry yet. Yami's first two books would be forgiven for ignorance but if he published one now he'd be knowingly, unforgivingly, betraying Yugi's trust. If he did that now, Yugi was making it clear with those tight eyes, he would not be forgiven.

"What do you want me to do?" Yami appealed with a total lack of expectation which seemed ruffling to the Faen. "I don't care if I never pick up a pen again. I get it. I can call my editor and tell her it's over. I can start a new series and actually come up with something on my own for once. I don't care."

"You've got eat somehow." The Faen mused.

"Got to do what you've got to do," he agreed, "but I'll think of something if I have to quit writing. You want me cancel the deal on the third book?"

"No…" Yugi insisted cautiously. "You could get away with another one but you'd have to change half of it. You wouldn't be able to mention Sanctuary at all and if other creatures figured out how the Seers captured Jenzar they'd be onto it too. You'd have to change names and locations and all sorts of things."

"It's fiction." Yami decided smoothly. He was ready to let it go. Accuracy was irrelevant. "What are the readers going to know? There's not point me making a bomb with another book and getting us killed I mean. I honestly don't care. It's up to you."

"Let me read it first?" The smaller compromised tenuously. "What's another one going to hurt if we're careful? But I want to see it before anyone else."

"Definitely, easy done," He swore casually. "Anything you want. It's reasonable."

"You sure?" Yugi mumbled hands slipping into his lap. "You've got a great fan-base, you enjoy it, you make a good living. You don't even care a little bit that it all has to change?"

"It's money and paper." He dismissed resting his cheek in his palm. "I know I should care more because I always wanted to write but I just _don't_anymore. I've got you guys now. I'd rather know you, Mokuba, Kaiba and Ryou and Amar and Sev and Morphis and everyone else was happy than worry if I get to go to conventions anymore. I just doesn't matter. I'll deal, I'll survive, I mean if I can handle Seers with you why the fuck am I worrying about grocery money in the grand scheme of things?"

"I was like that about my high-school exams," Yugi snorted, "so much was going on and I wanted to do well but I just thought: why do I care? It's not going to be the end of the world if I fail. I'll do my best. As long as no one dies today than it's a good fucking day so screw math. Whether I failed my senior maths exam or not is not going to be on my tombstone."

"_Exactly_," Yami breathed heartily at the sentiment as if Yugi had just grasped something he had been searching for the words for. "I mean, sure, the books are really satisfying but… I guess they were escapism, fun, and this is _real_. This is way more engaging, way more worthwhile, and way more fun in a really terrible way. If I can write a third book but it has to be less than true then who cares? I just want to still have you guys a year from now even if no one knows who I am."

"Didn't take you long," the smaller laughed. "May have taken you forever to figure out it was real but, shit, you sound so much like a Reaper pro already.

"I guess I'm cheating." He shrugged. "It's not like I'm strapped for cash right now after all. I'm not really worried about that in the long run. I'm a great gambler and a killer fucking gamer. I'm not just an author. I can make money. Money is money. Sides gambling and writing both don't expect me to be very reliable so if I have to deal with emergencies at odd hours it wouldn't matter like it would if I was at a desk job. I guess that's why you work from home and online? Makes sense."

"You gamble?" Yugi supposed curiously shuffling on the carpet to push back Yami's elbows and cross his arms over the Reapers' knees. Yugi leant his chin into his forearms and for a second Yami's imagination gave him the image of a great sultan and an interested courtier locked in storytelling.

"I was kind of addicted when I was younger." Yami admitted. "I haven't played anything in ages cause I was way too into it but it'd be really convenient now. I really clean up."

"Heh," he grinned, "you and Jenzar are going to run off to Vegas without me when he gets back. Just come back with a couple hundred grand each or something ridiculous. Pair up and clean out the whole city. He _loved_games."

"Really?" Somehow that sounded fun. Even given everything to be close to Jenzar like that sounded like something precious and good. "No one told me that. I always got the impression he was kind of inhumanly chivalrous and badass. I mean, I know you said he wasn't perfect and he could be an asshole but even then…"

"He's chivalrous alright," Yugi agreed on a soft ripple of nostalgia, "_loves_ being the hero or the gentlemen. He's always put stock in honour and valour all those Reaper things. He's a big kid though, always has been, hopeless philosopher, romantic, gamer… He's riddled with self-doubt too. Like, he knows he's good at what he does but he never feels like he's great at it. He's weirdly humble and he's so innocently amused at the simplest things even though we've seen it all before. He's unendingly positive but every now and again he'll decide everything's gone to shit and it's all ruined and he's fucked up permanently and I'll have to slap him round and get him to pull himself back together again. He's a sook."

"Doesn't exactly sound like King Arthur." It was playful on his part but oddly fascinated.

"Oh God no!" Yugi laughed as he drifted through the memories. "It's weird. I remember him being so practical when he had to be but he was so clingy when it was just us. He'll be all: _everything shall be just fine! I'll go take care of that!_ Then we'd be alone and he'd whine about having to go away. I've never liked being away from him but I've always coped better when we're separated for a while. He sulks inside. Most of the time he can't be serious for more than ten minutes without a stupid joke…He seems so big and imposing and incredible from not far off but when you get right up in his face he's such a hopeless _spaz._"

Watching Yugi, Atreyu, remember a millennium expanding relationship was enchanting in its old fashioned sweetness. There was a grandmotherly jokiness to it. Yugi unwrapped, unpacked, layers of familiarity and qualities which the soul of this other being had maintained over the centuries most truly despite the influences of the times and the places they'd been reincarnated in.

"We've lived in huts and palaces," Yugi prefaced dreamily, "but it's always been so easy to be happy wherever we end up. We've been in a one bedroom shack along the banks of a sordid little river and I still remember he'd sing to himself every single morning like we were in Venice in a grand hotel. As long as we were together everything was alright. Like… he's usually really good with kids but he's always terrified of being a father or a mother but he always wants me to have them. Thinks kids and I just go together, loves making me parent, thinks it's the most beautiful thing in the world. Maybe it brings out the best in me, or the worst, but he just loves it.

He's as stupid as I am too. Once or twice we've had more mouths to feed than we knew what to do with. He'd sneak not eating so the kids and I could but I'd find out and tell him off for working for hours and not eating. Then a few weeks later he'd have to call me out for doing the exact same thing and I'd tell _him_ off for telling _me_ off! And he'd apologise!"

He was laughing, he was smiling, he was drifting on a tide that lapped back thousands and thousands of years to lives on planets well before Earth had humans. Jealousy wanted to stir inside Yami's gut and to a degree it did but the heat was stolen by Yugi's contentment soothing the flames.

"See," Yami snorted, "no one else tells me that. Everyone I talk to makes it sound like he was all Superman all the time. You make him sound like a person."

"He _is_ amazing, he _is_ a superman," Yugi confessed nonchalantly. "It's hard not to love him but he's also a person. He lived, he breathed, and he got cranky without his breakfast.

"I know," he nodded, "I just haven't been able to see him like that."

"You'd love him. I could say the sky was orange and you'd both go: _oh sure Trey whatever you say sweetheart!" _Yugi fawned happily. "When I get him back you and he will fall madly in love, ditch me and never come back."

"No way," Yami dismissed playfully. "We'll fight like scorpions."

"He's going to think you're so badass," the smaller assured contradictorily. "He's going to ask me why I bothered to come looking for him with you around. He's going to be so grateful to you you've got no idea…"

"Amar and Sev said that," he pondered, as they continued to pretend that Jenzar's return was certain. "But…I keep thinking he's going to hate me."

"He's going _adore_ you." Yugi fought insistently. "Just like Amar and Sev do. Just like I think you're fantastic."

"But what about you?" Yami pushed on more curious than bothered. This was gentle and to his surprise he didn't find himself uneasy to talk about Jenzar like this. He sounded more human, more reachable, and more filial when Yugi illustrated his character. "I feel like I know you, I do, but I don't know much about this life time. We've sort of been too busy for that. So, what you told me in the gardens was true right? No parents but you've got a grandfather?"

"Yeah," he paled softly, brushing his hair back from his face. "He runs a game shop in Domino City. Lived there my whole life, right above the shop, he's lovely. Used to be an archaeologist and run off on adventures when I was little."

"He where you picked up your history fetish?"

"Oh yeah," Yugi snorted weakly.

"Must like that you're taking it at University," Yami supposed.

"Probably," he shrugged uselessly, "I don't know."

"How come?"

"I haven't talked to him for two years," Yugi mumbled, resting his arms back across Yami's knees and planting his chin back across his forearms after it had lifted with animation discussing Jenzar. "I've had to move a lot. When I turned eighteen, when high school ended, I jetted out of there. It was just getting way too dangerous for him. Lots of nasties had read your book by then and gossip was around and they'd started to find me here in the Natural World too in the masses."

"Oh…" Yami had remembered perhaps a second or so too late, stomach churning, and sighing he leant forward to wrap his arm round Yugi's shoulder as he brought their foreheads together. "I'm so sorry, could I help somehow?"

"It's alright," the younger assured, "if I wasn't so frazzled and overworked I'd be able to protect him as well but I'm shot doing all this without Jenzar backing me up. When we find him I'll figure it out. Grandpa will forgive me. He knows there are just some things I won't tell him and as long as I'm happy he won't push."

"Can't I back you up?" Yami supposed uselessly. "Maybe… I don't know, something?"

"Oh buddy," he chuckled, "when you get your memories back your powers are going to quadruple but till then I've got to keep an eye on you. You can help me then. That's why it's so easy to still be friends with Kaiba and Ryou: they can protect themselves with their own magic sort of like you can. Grandpa can't so for now its best he's as far away from me as possible."

"I'm still sorry." He insisted. "If I'd had any idea you were real…"

"I know," he promised, rubbing his nose teasingly against Yami's. "Never mind that, what else do you want to know?"

"You a workaholic in everything?" Yami joked weakly leaning more of his weight against Yugi fighting the urge to tip their faces against each other and kiss him.

"Double Major at University," he answered cheekily, "English and History."

"How the fuck do you find time?" He laughed.

"ADHD." Yugi retorted jokingly. "Multitasking mastery is probably my only superpower. I get bored if I'm not doing four things at once. Part of having a Faen core means I'm never out of energy so it's hard to sleep and its' hard to keep me occupied. Not to mention with my Faen core I hardly ever get sick. Flus wipe the shit out of Ryou and I barely get a sniffle. It's good like that. Hate doctors. They're useless. I've got terrible patience for them. I'm too practically minded and short on time. If I feel like they're yanking me around or taking too long I just don't go back, would serve me right if I got cancer."

* * *

1 AP = Astral Projecting

2 Tragic or not I always thought Dartz was kind of an arse. Understandably I'm surprised Atreyu didn't go full on beat-down on said arse.

3 Tartarus was the Greek equivalent of Hell and a prison for the Titans Zues defeated. Really could there be a better name for the home of the Seers?

4 So the books have been discussed! Yami's got a publishing plan!

Okay loves, hope you had a fabulous week and do let me know what you think of your surprise when it's up~


	12. The Mourning Star in Plain Sight

Hey guys, big apologies this week. My edit had to be something of a rush job tonight I'm sorry. Between losing power in my apartment for 15 hours, yelling at my landlord, university seminars and a four hours dinner date with the girls I'm feeling a bit '_Sex and the City_'d out tonight!

* * *

Chapter 12: _The Mourning Star in Plain Sight_

"You're prolific aren't you?" Yami supposed grasping delicately at Yugi's upper arms to half gesture, half tug, the Faen up onto the couch beside him and sighing Yugi leant into his side, fell into his arms, head lulling onto his shoulder.

"With what?"

"Your writing?"

"Could say that," Yugi retorted lazily, dazing as he shuffled himself more comfortably against the Reaper.

"We should get something of yours published." He thought aloud languidly.

"Eh, no thanks," Yugi mumbled nonchalantly turning his face into Yami's neck. "I don't care if no one ever reads my stuff. I write it for me. When I'm bored or sad or a thought won't get out of my head any other way. It's directed energy not a career prospect."

"Yeah but I bet people would love your stuff."

"I'd have to make sacrifices, change things. I wouldn't be able jus to write for me anymore."

"Maybe but-"

Yugi's phone, a sharper siren ring tone which made the Faen tense, rang out buzzing in the young man's pocket and silenced Yami let the other groggily shuffle to sit only using his own support as he fondled the device. That ring tone was a code to Yugi, Yami had only recently realized, the Faen had rigged his whole Natural life to attune with his Supernatural one. The rings tones were just another way of sorting priorities: if it was fluting like the one at the garden then Yugi didn't have to rush to answer it if he was busy but if it was sharp like it was now it meant someone important.

"Hello?" He coughed. "Oh hey Ryou, what's up?"

Yami pushed into his arms to shuffle himself up to full alertness.

"Ahuh? Yeah well that figures." Yugi groaned. "He'll be right Ryou don't worry about him…_Argh,_Ryou- yeah I know, I know, but really? He only gets one coupon a year and we're blowing it on this shit? He's out getting wasted."

Bakura, mysterious, un-liked Bakura no doubt causing new trouble for his adoring Ferry Man. Yami had yet to meet Bakura, to see him or touch him or prove he was real but he didn't have much desire to do so. Bakura seemed to be that one friend every circle had who was generally, unanimously, despised by all but the most enduringly sympathetic. In this case that was forgiving Ryou thanks to the nature of his soul type. Yugi had little patience for Bakura and as a creature related very closely to the Seers, a Child of Lilith, Yami doubted very much that he would find some quality in Bakura to be fond of.

"Oh fuck him," Yugi snorted impatiently. "Of course I would Ryou but I'm not bailing him out of his shit… yeah? Well for you- Yeah, I promised, I meant it. I always do… Of course, but why do you want to blow it on-" the Faen frowned delicately. "Oh did he now? Fucker… yeah, alright, fine I'll go get him home. You just hang tight. Yep, okay, love you Ryou. Bye."

"What's up?" Yami wouldn't even pretend he wasn't going to get involved. He had stuck by Atreyu this long he rather took pride in being leant on by the Faen. He wanted Yugi to get him involved, he wanted to help, he wanted to be in on the secret and trusted.

"Bakura fucks off to God knows' where a lot," he sighed in disgust. "He's drunk at some bar somewhere and wants help getting home. Usually I don't give a fuck. Ryou knows I won't do shit for Bakura but I told Ryou if he ever really needed me to help I'd bail them out but it's a once a year kind of offer. No refunds. Bakura worries him silly all the time. Now Ryou wants to go drag him home but Bakura won't tell him where he is because apparently he doesn't want Ryou to see him like this. Ass wipe wants me to come get him."

"Oh right," Yami grumbled, "cause that doesn't sound fucking suspicious. I mean you and Bakura are so close."

"I know right?" He heaved irritably waving the phone between his fingers. "I better go get him though. You want to come with?"

"Sure," what else would Yami say? What adventure would he miss out on? What dangerous situation would he let fearless Yugi walk off into alone?

"Better suit up then." The Faen sighed and in an offhanded gesture pecked his lips against Yami's cheeks as he rose. "I don't trust Bakura's sorry Seer ass as far as I can beat him."

There was a peculiar intermingling of sensations as Yami followed his wisp up the stairwell into the more pungent, darker hung, regions of Yugi's timeless grove of a home. The air was still thick and tangible with magic that shifted round them like water, still seemed to bubble and fade as if they were submerged in it.

As Yami slumped onto the edge of Yugi's bed and let the Faen prep himself, text Bakura for a bar to haul him out of, Yami was practically a doll for the other to arm however he saw fit. He didn't mind that. Maybe it was just Atemu's calm which had wafted thickly into his veins but there was pleasure in adventure like this. This was right and normal. Yami was a Reaper, he had been for four billion years, and amongst all this danger there was nowhere better he could belong. As uncomfortable as it may have been for practicalities he thrived in this environment and it soothed some burn inside him to be lulled into the lushness of this mythology.

He strained, not for the first time, to push his imagination and his memory back to something before this life time. He could feel wisps of it. Things felt right, natural, as they should have given his past incarnations but even after four years and meeting Yugi, Atreyu, in person he could remember nothing. He could barely access any power beyond the uppermost epidermis of his core, his soul, as far as magic. It was a weakness and a curse but try as he might his mind hit nothing as it mined but a black, indestructible, wall he couldn't penetrate. No history book felt familiar to him. No scene stirred some unforseen reaction in him. Nothing urged some old part of him. It was as if everything before this life was a dead, empty, void. He would have to ask Yugi if he had this much trouble remembering or perhaps he should follow the Faens suggestion a few breakfasts ago to check his older writings for hints of who or what might be lurking in his subconscious?

"Think you can fit into my silver chainmail?" Yugi quirked as he rifled through the top drawer of the dresser.

"My hands aren't much bigger," Yami assured, and caught the little unbundle of netted silver fingerless gloves like a football quarterback catching a ball. "What are you going to wear?"

"I've got back ups," he gestured, raising his hands to demonstrate fairly inconspicuous rings and bangles which Yami intrinsically understood to be silver and iron.

It was funny how much he had learnt to understand in such a short stretch of time as Yugi finished dressing. The Faen was fairly careless about changing in front of Yami out of his slacks, kicking them up with his heels, to slip into a pair of more reliable jeans. His thighs, the backs of his calves, were just as tenderly beautiful and mermaid-esque as the rest of him. Jenzar or not, Reaper pride or not, Yami didn't think he'd ever stop loving the being that was Atreyu and Yugi. That said he couldn't blame Jenzar for loving him either.

"You're prepared for everything," Yami remarked idly as he bounced up onto his feet after the prepped Faen.

"Got to be," Yugi smiled. "Let's go get this sorry piece of shit."

"Any advice for my newbie ass?"

"Just follow my lead," he retorted easily as they slipped down the stairs and out into the night, "you're getting really good at that."

Were they a team? Maybe not much of one but it felt like it.

Yami let that thought warm inside his ribcage, blooming, as he snapped the front door shut behind them.

* * *

"You're kidding." The bartender twitched. He had that nasty expression that suggested he thought Yugi was playing some kind of trick on him he didn't quite understand.

"I'm so serious it hurts." Yugi sighed dully presenting a twenty dollar note between his index and middle fingers as he rested his elbows on the bar. "Now can I _please_have my drink?"

He frowned a little longer but snatching up the generous payment grumbled and foraged behind the counter. Yugi swivelled on his seat, his side bushing Yami's as he turned, to get a better look over the club. The place was large, an old factory maybe, with a high sloping corrugated roof. Music pounded across the vast dance floor and stretching his eyes Yami could hardly see anything familiar in the sea of seething bodies.

They'd made an immediate, casual, beeline for the bar and as of yet Yugi had expressed no inclination to search more actively for Bakura. Yami wasn't sure who he was looking for, what kind of face, but he trusted Yugi would direct him when it was necessary. Yugi was nothing if not business like and in this claustrophobic disco tech tangle. Yami could've been fooled into thinking they were hunting on some astral plane.

"Lord _Nicki Minaj_," Yugi groaned miserably, as he swung his fixed stool back and forth between Yami and the bar.

"I guess we're not in a rush." Yami supposed leaning into one arm.

"I just want to be ready for anything." The Faen elaborated moving in towards Yami as he swung back around.

The music forced them to whisper, faces almost together, struggling to hear without shouting out their intentions. It felt good, hot, and perhaps Yami was wrong for liking it.

"Thanks," Yugi purred, accepting the glass the bartended begrudgingly complied to hand to him. Sipping as a precursor he assured himself of the drink's quality before pivoting back round and slipping of his stool.

The glass was misted, laden with ice cubes, and Yami rather thought it must've been lemonade but while Yugi carefully kept the straw between his teeth he picked out the ice cubes to drop stealthily under the bar. Straw back in the glass he took to stirring the contents idly as he began his pace round the perimeter. Typically Yami found himself just a fraction behind Yugi's lead and dipped his fingers into the back pocket of the Faen's jeans to keep them close and unseparated as the crowd thickened.

"Bakura's in a booth, far wall," Yugi murmured over his shoulder pressing his lips right up to the shell of Yami's ear to be heard as he tried to keep them moving. "Don't sit down okay?"

"Wouldn't dream of it," he promised stomach tightening with anxiety.

This wasn't like when those Seer possessed punks tried to break into his home. This was better. He felt more like Atemu, more like his true self actually, prepared to accept this reality and grab it with both hands eagerly. The silver wrought gloves against his naked palms tingled coldly and he knew he could fight with them. He was armed. He wasn't helpless.

"Hey," he tugged at Yugi's back pocket, "will spells work here?"

"Not exactly," Yugi whispered. "It's harder here, less obvious, so don't try anything fancy but if you order a possessed flunkie hard enough they'll fly right out of their meat sack. Don't be afraid to use your voice."

That was impossibly reassuring. Yami had a vocabulary. Yami could put emphasis in his words. This was creeping more and more towards one of their astral hunts and as they unglued themselves from the way to head down the row of booths he slung his arm protectively round Yugi's shoulders as the Faen stirred his drink.

They wandered along the line of booths briskly. Yugi knew what they were looking for and it occurred to Yami, as he blocked out the sight of another frisky couple in the dark corners, to see if he could feel any currents of energy here like he could in Yugi's home. He could feel Yugi's core pulsing beside him prevalently but the smaller was obscuring its glow and his touch tingled much less than it typically did. The other signals were mingled, a sea of small fish, aside from one uneasy black spot just ahead in the ninth booth.

Yugi glanced into it and, sighing, came to a stop with Yami still at his side. The Reaper's body followed the Faen's cues instinctively and Yami felt his arm withdraw to settle his hand on the small of Yugi's back instead arm almost wrapping snug round his taunt hips.

"You look like death." Yugi admonished at the sorry sack of a human being within the booth and, grumbling, what must've been Bakura tipped back his drink and pressed the iced glass to his temple.

"Fucking feel like it," he grumbled hoarsely. Bakura had a deep, rich, tone that would've been devastatingly attractive if not so sailor harsh and his features, which were likewise handsome, were bruised and beaten to a sorry pulp.

Yami did not miss the grinning, gossiping, males in the opposing side of Bakura's booth who were half watching them. Bakura's energy as a type of Seer was as cold and unpleasant to Yami's prickling senses and it obscured the gentle discomfort he received from the site of Bakura's two hyena like accomplices currently not bothering to introduce themselves.

"Let's go Bakura."

"Slow the fuck down." He groaned. "Give me a minute. Grab a seat, get a drink or something."

"Not happening." Yugi ordered stoutly. "We either jet now or I'm leaving you."

Yami fought not to tense, curl, his fingers into Yugi's shirt but he couldn't help twitching as a few sweaty dance floor bodies swayed a little too close to their backs. Those bodies steadied there as Bakura groaned, just behind Yami, two or so of them which likewise made him uncomfortable.

"You're such a kill joy." The man sneered twitching his fingers to his companions in the opposing side of the booth. "See, told you my ride was a prick."

"Yeah well you're unbearable Bakura," one teased, and the other cackled into them as if the joke was funnier than it was. Even with their partner's face against their neck the young man gestured to Yugi. "Don't mind him. Want a seat beautiful?"

"Not particularly." Yugi scoffed steely as he plucked the straw from his drink offhandedly. "Let's go Bakura. _Now_."

"I'm gonna puke." Bakura warned snappish the glass still cradled to his temple.

The pair of bodies behind Yami and Yugi were steady now, still, and Yami was worried to turn round and break the mounting tension with a rubber band _twang_. Something had to give.

"You're such a retard." The same young man giggled airily, hissing, at Bakura's pain. "Come on good looking. Dance with me while stupid gets his shit together?"

Yugi sighed.

"I don't dance with shit."

His hand motioned effortlessly. He rocked the glass, slightly tipped, back and forth in a lunge of his fingers and in perfect cinematic clarity Yami watched the drink splatter heavily across the two entangled gigglers.

Fluid hit their skin, singed, and contorting in pain the pair of them hissed dreadfully in high, pained, voices.

_Salt water!_

It occurred to Yami in a second and his hand was off Yugi's back. Yugi had dropped the glass as quickly as he'd made the gesture. As the salt singed the unfriendly possessed young males the Faen had swung back round him, twisting on his feet, to throw a well-placed silver-ringed fist into the face of one of the grinning bulkers waiting behind them. The third man reeled back, spitting in human pain and an inhuman reaction to the silver and all at once, on cue, Yami found himself round driving his elbow back into the stomach of the body behind him with predatory harshness.

The pair behind them were stumbling as the pair in the booth tried to scrambled out of it towards them and darting Yugi took off into the ground. Yami was glad he knew well enough to lick his heels.

Yugi dragged them to the writhing centre of the dance floor and throwing his arms round Yami's neck slammed them together.

"Side alley through the back door," he hissed against Yami's lips, "they won't attack us in the horde like this. It's too public. We lure them out back and take care of them."

"Four on two isn't great odds." Yami reminded. His hands had moved of their own accord, ordered by the Faen's wordless instruction to gravitate them together as naturally as possible in this space, grasping deceptively rocking hips as Yugi stuck them into the music.

"It's either that or they follow us home." He countered.

"What are they?"

"Seers, definitely," Yugi spat. "Bakura must've sold me out."

"What's the plan?" Yami muttered grimly holding them together through the surging chorus like lovers.

"Going to have to use your voice," the smaller rued, "physical spells won't work. We've got to drive the demons out of those bodies ASAP before they close in too tight. Use the silver if you get cornered and worse comes to worse we run. Stick with exorcism vocabulary and make sure you _mean it_."

"Got it." Yami swore squeezing Yugi against him. "I'll cover your back."

"No heroics okay?" The Faen ordered fingers tapping against his cheek almost playfully. "Strategic retreat is totally legit here."

"Bodies hurt." He reminded playfully. "I'm not trying anything too grand."

"Let's kick some ass." Yugi grinned.

"Amen."

* * *

Yugi may have been Atreyu but in the conscious Natural world Atreyu took on a whole different style through Yugi. Atreyu was a fairy, a fantastical fairy tale crusader, but here in the night streetlamp they rushed under into the back alley Yugi was an almost futuristic action hero.

Yami was acutely aware of his body. He felt the cold air ripple up his spine, felt the twitching light above bother his temples as he blinked, felt the heaviness in his legs over the asphalt and he worried for a second he would lose his nerve here where fighting was different. It would be gritty here but he didn't have much time to complain. The Seers had been watching them, circling them, on the dance floor and as they escape into the open air Yugi had let the cap off his core and the energy flowing off him was a massive signal to lure them out to fight.

The four of them stumbled sloppily, angrily, into the street and Yugi very carefully held he and Yami with their backs to the open ended end of the alley way.

"Filthy Faen!" The young one Yugi had hit in the face spat cheek bones red with the welts of their growing burns. "I'll eat you!"

"I'm delicious and nutritious." Yugi teased as his hands came out in stretched, effortless, gesture before him. "_EXPELL!_"

The young one shrieked, cringed back, exhaled chokingly though its stolen nostrils like a bull pushing back against a lance and hissing charged with its cohort.

Yami found his hands flying out in-front of him, stumbling slurring syllables, as he struggled past a human culture shock, stage fright, of raising his voice in public that right now was intensely stupid. Life threatening speech fear was about the worse impotence Yami could've hoped for when he finally strangled out:

"_EXODUS!_" It was weak, clumsy, but the Seers hissed cattishly enough.

"Good one!" Yugi laughed. "Come on! With gusto! _BANISHMENT!_"

The Seers pushed on and the nearest took opportunity enough to lunge for Yugi. The Faen's back hit the asphalt, tackled, but never stopped fighting: punching, kicking, fingers grasping the Seer's head between his hands as he flung curses.

Yami wanted to help but he was the next one almost bowled off his feet. The Seer got in close and dodging Yami hardly missed the full body assault which made the Seer stumble and hit the pavement as it failed to make contact.

"_PURIFY!_" Yami hollered down, arm outstretched, directing himself to the Seer on the ground who writhed but was forced to spin back round and drive his silver clad fist into the approaching face of one of the remaining two. "_SANCTIFY!_"

"_HALLOWED GROUND!_" Yugi hissed, voice almost biblical, and the Seer in his grip let out a terrible scream before it rolled, half kicked, off the Faen.

Yugi left the now free boy moaning pitifully on the pavement and lurched back to his feet to rush past Yami to the remaining Seers.

"_SMITE!_" Yugi cried and then rushing, with both hands, drove Seer number four into the back wall of the alley.

"You stole that from me!" Yami laughed despite himself, punching out again to Seer number three, dancing back as Seer number two fought back to its feet and the pair of them came back on him. "_EPIPHANY!_"

"Get over it!" The Faen refused to apologise driving his knee into Seer number four's groin, both hands grasping the shoulders. "_EXCORCISE!_"

"_DAMNATION!_" He wasn't sure where he was directing it anymore with the two Seers closed in on him as he darted from clinging hands and lunging bodies.

Yugi's fist hit the sagging Seer before he realized it was out, gone, and leaving previously Seer number four numb against the wall flung himself back to Yami's aid. Yugi's spells had more punch. They worked faster.

"_BANISH!_" Yugi screamed.

Yami darted, they made it back together, both of them with their back to the alley wall and inhaling, panting, Yami staggered.

"One more," the Faen panted urging. "One more and we've got em!"

"I'll take your word for it!" Yami heaved, hands out, voice cracking as he gathered air like an opera singer. "_REPELL!_"

The weakened Seers two and three sagged, lumbered, but shuffled forward insistently.

"Double hitter," Yugi ordered, "I'll push em down you take them out. Ready? _SANCTIFY!_"

"_PURIFY!_" Yami felt like a miner, a cotton picker, replying in some chain song but with unearthly, unphysical, force the Seers hit the ground and scream, writhed, out of their stolen bodies.

Yugi exhaled weakly, slumping fully into the wall, and groaning slipped from his feet to pant on his arse in the alley as Yami sunk beside him.

"Holy shit." Yami croaked in surmise.

"Bout that." The Faen concurred laughing breathlessly closing his eyes as he gathered himself. "Okay," he whistled preparing himself for the effort of rising, "ready for round two?"

"What now?" The Reaper sighed.

"Now," Yugi heaved stumbling to his feet and offering his hand to help Yami onto his heavy, sweaty, legs while their hearts were still pounding. "We find Bakura."

There was something dark about the turn of Yugi's voice but Yami could catch the venom and reflect it readily. Bakura had sold them out alright, turned them in, to Seers which was worse.

* * *

Bakura was hobbling down the street with the broken swagger of a wounded predator as Yami and Yugi exited the main entrance of the club to follow briskly. The Child of Lilith could feel them, surely, given Yugi's core was seething out waves of furiously violent inclination as they followed.

Yami was _alive_. Too alive even to be truly mad at Bakura, with sweat forcing his shirt to cling to him and the burn of use aching in his muscles, because he'd never felt this good. His heart kept fluttering, skipping, over his breath as his mind reeled through the details. They'd fought well, he and Yugi, and Yami had really, here in the Natural world, been a Reaper down and dirty. He hadn't gotten in a fist fight since he was eighteen and he hadn't shouted spells in public since he was eight. It was amazingly surging, reassuring and confidence soaring. Atemu was totally overlapped with him now filling his cockles with joy.

The Lance of Lazarus, still hiding as a red pendent, bounced against Yugi's clavicle in the moonlight mingled street light as he increased his stride.

"Bakura!" He spat.

The man ignored him as he hobbled along sourly.

"_Bakura!_" Yugi snapped. "You will halt your sorry ass and talk to me you coward!"

"What do you want!" He bellowed, twisting back on uneasy footing towards them as he hauled his himself to an uneasy stop leaning into a board wooden lamp post.

"You sold me out to Seers!" The Faen challenged furiously.

"Yeah, tell me something new," Bakura chortled tossing his arms open. "Whatta you want from me?"

"I could've been killed!"

"No you couldn't have." Bakura sneered. "I know you Motou. You're ruthless. Yeah, I told the Seers I knew you, I owed a few of them and, as you can see,-" he gestured over his beaten body illustratively "-they wanted to collect. So I weaselled my way out of it with you. It's what I do."

"You sacrifice other people." Yugi spat.

"I figured," the nasty bastard explained lips upturning, "that you'd rip them up. Now I don't owe anyone right? Least not till they reform in a few years and by then they won't care."

"You made Ryou worried shitless about you." The Faen shook venomously. "You used my promise to clear up your crap! I don't do this nonsense Bakura. I don't play round with stupid bottom feeders like you!"

"Cause you're too old and too boring." Bakura snorted planting one hand on his hip. "What does it matter? You're fine."

The Child of Lilith bumped his fingers against Yugi's chest, shoving him, and viciously fast the Faen caught his wrist and slammed Bakura's palm against the crimson pendent. The hidden Lance of Lazarus.

"_Ah fuck!_" Bakura screeched wrenching his hand back, swearing, holding the painfully wounded hand in its shaking twin. "_Fuck Motou!_"

By the look of things Jenzar's magic could read Yugi's heart well enough to know Bakura was an enemy or, perhaps, the Lance simply recognised any creation of close relation to a Seer instinctively. Either way it did the trick.

"Next time you want to call me: _don't_." Yugi ordered. "My pact with Ryou? I'm revoking it. I'm not ever helping you again. _Ever._ This is the last lifetime I play with you. If I ever see you again after this reincarnation I'll send you packing to your cousins. We clear _Akefia?_"

"Don't get all high and mighty on me!" The man sneered nastily still clutching his scorned hand. "I don't give a damn what you are _Atreyu!_ You and the rest of the Reapers can kiss my ass. Yeah, I'm almost a Seer, same mother, but guess what? There's a lot more of us than there is of you. I know which team I'm vouching for. So you play high and mighty all you like but first why don't you tell your replacement meat shield all about the big master plan the Faens have?"

"Jesus," the Faen scoffed, shaking his head. "Cause trying to destroy the universe is so much better huh?"

"I just happen to like living." Bakura snapped. "I like _life_. Nasty, mean, messy life. Seers destroy order. Destroying the universe is _your_ job you extremist prat! So you can kiss my ass!"

Yugi whipped his hand up and, effortlessly, flashed Bakura the finger.

* * *

"What did Bakura mean?" Yami asked gently with his hands in his pockets as they strode into the nearest McDonalds to sate themselves with post fight munchies at this ungodly hour.

"The destroying the universe shit?" The Faen sighed rifling through his pockets for cash staring down the glossy display plaques of the fast food joint. "It's a cultural disagreement between the Faens and the Seers that's pretty ancient and universal for why we don't get along. The Seers think that chaos keeps the universe going, they like it, so they make the universe as wild and cruel as they can. Faens, Reapers, Watchers and all other sorts of types keep the universe ordered so that, maybe, one day everyone can stop being assholes to each other and just be happy together."

"And that's bad _because?_"

"Well," Yugi groaned as he elaborated, "everything in the universe, both sides of the Veil included, used to be part of one whole. We all had one point of origin. We're all related. Science calls it the big bang. You remember that right? Amar would've told you when you were newbie? In the first life the universe came into being when that whole became pieces?"

"Yeah, I remember."

"Well the Seers think that if we keep all our rules and learn to get along, co-exist, that the whole universe will become homogenous till we absorb back together and everything ceases to be in order to re-assemble that original _thing_we all come from. They think that order's the engine by which we kill the universe and individual existence. So their answer is to fuck up that order."

"Well," Yami chortled, folding his arms across his chest languidly contemplating a burger. "They're jack asses aren't they?"

"Pretty much," Yugi snorted, laughing transparently. "Chocolate sundae?"

"Hmm, hot fudge," he considered thoughtfully.

* * *

Yami's knuckles were bruised. It made typing tedious but that was, he supposed, a relatively small price to pay compared to the skid marks he had. Least now he understood how Yugi always managed to look like he'd gotten into a fight. It didn't matter anyway. Yami had hit a dead end.

The opening and the ending of his book would be relatively simple to cover: Yugi and Atreyu would be two different people and Atemu would get one. Problem solved. Happy Ending gift wrapped. Killing off Jenzar entirely and having Atreyu switch Reapers, making Atemu a Champion, would probably be a more popular ending. It just sounded grander. Yami worried though that a finish like that would hurt Yugi, make things unbearably awkward or ruin things between he and Jenzar if the Champion returned. What that ending would reveal about Yami's dreams and preferences wasn't the best way to start a relationship off.

In the meantime Yami had another problem which had left him bamboozled but charged with a sense of purpose. How to structure the plot, how to get from beginning to end, without mentioning Sanctuary or Yugi or anything equally dangerous to expose? He wasn't sure yet. Mainly it meant a lot of mind-mapping and swivelling in his desk chair chewing the end of his pen. The chewing was a dirty habit. Even typing he found himself chewing as part of some nervous or creative twitch. Still dead end reached or not he found himself enjoying the process of fabricating the elements necessary to get away with telling this story properly.

Mind-mapping had settled so he could let the ideas churn in-between his temples, kind of like fondue, as he raised the volume of the speakers to pump some dreadfully romantic R-and-B. He had a tendency to shove all the odd bits and awkward ends of one story in one document scissoring it up and letting it grow in isolation while he played with it. Fingers scampering over the keys he had no idea what to say, he couldn't until he figured out this plot hole, so for the moment he was just letting his fingers ramble odd nonsense he might've been able to slot in later.

_The One that Got Away_ came on and passed fittingly as Yami combed the back regions of his mind for nothingness. He plucked words stupidly, too much purple prose, but let them flow without cap and eventually they formed sentences.

Sort of…?

Yami contorted his features, knitting his brows together, and re-read the passage carefully.

_Black sky, black plateau, purple juxtapose just along the interim. Sunset here, nearly twilight, no breeze, actually… no moon, no sun, no stars, no water, no fertile soil- wait…_

_Rip. Counter. Slash. Block. Scream. _

_Hit stone, scream, swarmed._

_Vultures._

_Eating? No, tearing? Dissect…? _

_Oh god…_

_Help! HELP ME!_

_Lost. Lost. Lost. Fuck. Damage? Leaking, dying…? No… Oh god no… how? OH GOD! DYING! DYING! FUCK! MOVE!_

_Oh god. Hurts. Heavy. Blood? Oh god… going to die… going to die here… Not here, proper burial, fires, forefathers… not here… please don't let me die here… _

_Keep moving. Keep moving. Oh god we're falling apart…MOVE DAMNIT! _

Yami slammed the plastic lid shut. He couldn't take it. His heart throbbed, panic rose as bile in the deepest part of his throat all the way down to his stomach and slipping back into his seat where he had risen onto his hackles he realized he was shaking. The hell was that…?

Terror dissipated into hesitant excitement. Were these feelings, words, memories of a past life or a past death perhaps? _Finally!_

It was just the tip of an iceberg. Abrasive and frightful in the intensity of the reaction it stirred in his gut. It was a part of his subconscious he didn't necessarily like for the memory in particular but the fact it was there, that he'd found the edge or tail of some old coat just behind that impenetrable wall where his memories of this life ended and those before it began, was _stupendous_.

Cautious he considered trying to dip into the jar again and seeing what he could find. Fingers twitching he parted the seam of the laptop to open it up like unfolding a book-

"Yo! Yami!"

Fucking Joey Wheeler trapped behind the front door was moaning his arrival. Yami groaned. He loved Joey dearly but right now? Lord!

"Coming!" He hollered back over his shoulder, snapping the laptop shut, putting Pandora's Box back into the corner it had come lumbering out of the shadows from like a primal beast.

Joey was irritable? Nervous? Fidgeting uncertainly on the spot at the top step and he looked keen to barrel past Yami as the author stuck he head out.

"Hey," Yami greeted cordially, "what's up? You okay?"

"I had gay sex." Joey deadpanned. The tone, the expression, was perhaps purposefully reminiscence of an old black and white horror flick. If Yami had any directorial genius he would've made lightning crash about now.

"_No? _Witchcraft!" He retorted dramatically. "Come in, come in, quickly! We have to sacrifice a goat to the Lord and purify your soul!"

"Shut up." The blonde grunted. "I'm sensitive right now."

"I'll bet you are." Yami cackled.

"Ah shuddup!" He rumbled shoving his way inside Yami's house.

It was rather fortuitous they occurred to meet so frequently at Yami's place. It was better for the public hygiene of all really. Yami had seen Joey's place frequently since they were teenagers: lots of dirty laundry on the floor of every room, undone dishes, video game consoles littering the place like fallen soldiers… It was lived in, loved, but there was the creeping scent of an almost putrid lack of care that slipped towards hoarding tendencies and imagery. The clearest contrast to explain the metaphor would've been Yugi's cluttered house. Yugi's house was very similar to Joey's but whereas Joey's felt like a frat boy mansion Yugi's had the scent and primness of a cluttered antique shop.

"So what happened to you?" Joey demanded stoutly as he threw himself back into the couch. "Get in a fight or something?"

"Just a little one," Yami shrugged at the scratches, he hadn't taken any Seer lodged fists to the face last night thankfully.

"Who with?"

"You know Ryou?" He prefaced. "His boyfriend got wasted and I helped Yugi haul him home."

"_Whipped_." Joey emphasised flicking his fingers in a tossing motion as he recreated the little lashing sound.

"Whatever," he grunted, he'd slide that off the table for today. "Give me all the goss on getting your cherry popped."

Joey didn't like the teenage school girl comparisons apparently given how he thrust his tongue out sneeringly and threw his head back into the cushions.

"I had queer sex." He repeated to himself in torpor at the ceiling. "Totally fagalicious fairy sex and I was the bottom bitch. The hell is wrong with me?"

"Nothing," Yami sighed playfully, "unless it was with Kaiba."

"No it was Neil Patrick Harris," Joey grunted saucily, "you know how I love all American yanks."

"Totally," he chuckled. "Was it _that_ bad?"

"No," the blonde grumbled, "it was just fucking weird."

"Kinky," he teased.

"Not like that!" Joey moaned. "Just… I don't know! It didn't _feel_like sex. There wasn't enough awkward messing around and he knew what he was doing and I went all butter mouth and it was kinda like we were still fighting and…argh… I don't even know. It was weird!"

"Bad weird?" Yami quirked.

"No…" the blonde concluded indecisively. "It was really good. It just didn't feel like sex."

"Didn't feel like your idea of sex." He countered checking his own thoughts ponderously. "That's not a bad thing Jou. It's different with two guys.

"Eh…" He mumbled.

"You're adjusting." Yami counselled crossing his legs up with him into the coffee table so he could sit like a swami. "You had fun? He had fun?"

"I guess."

"He came?"

"Once or twice," Joey sniggered embarrassedly.

"Then he had fun." Yami snorted. "That's what counts right? Unless you want a baby or something. I mean, Jesus, if it bugs you that much you can top next time."

"I can?"

"It's not written in stone Joey." He chortled. "There's not some secret Gay initiation code that says you have to sign up for a life of bitch-ness or brawny dominance. This isn't prison. It's not written in the stars somewhere."

"I guess…" he considered.

"Only problem might be that stick up Kaiba's ass." Yami assured teasingly. "You're happy though, aren't you?" He had to ask. He'd played Joey's father so long it was protocol.

"Yeah," Joey shrugged. "Got you, it's fun, Kaiba's kinda fun to be round too, Yug' and Ryou are nice guys, Mokuba's a lot like Serenity and Serenity thinks Kaiba's the fucking bomb. Not worried about cash any more. Kaiba throws it round so much it's not like I feel bad when he wants to buy text books or something. It's just different."

"Why?" He pressed. "Don't you love him?"

"Well, see," the blonde snorted, "that's the extra weird thing. He's kinda romantic but he's not gooey. Like he's thoughtful but he never fusses. All the girls I've dated fuss and swoon and shit. Kaiba just gets weirdly possessive but all aloof about it, wants me to let him take care of stuff just cause, and I asked a little while ago, like: _are we in love?_And you know what the fucker told me?"

"Dare I ask?"

"_Well duh dipshit_," Joey retorted in his best Kaiba, "_I thought that was obvious_._ You want it on a card or something?_"

Yami burst out cackling. That sounded just about right.

"You want him to say it?" He asked recovering himself.

"Nah, I thought it was kind of cool," the blonde grinned. "It's nice cause it's not all stuffy and I don't have to do all those crappy baby voices on the phone to some clingy chick. I can just talk smack at Kaiba. Like it's really casual '_I love you_', like I have with Serenity, where you know and you don't have to say it every fucking convo to prove it. It's not currency."

Joey seemed to have hit some kind of mental gold within himself, passed a hurdled to flick a light bulb, and he rambled so suddenly Yami let him continue aloud. It was under the guise of talking to his old friend but really, if they were honest, Joey was talking more to himself.

"I don't have to pretend to like shit," Joey continued. "If I pretend to be nice or something Kaiba just tells me off for bullshitting him. I can be really blunt and just tell him off. If he's got his head up his ass he wants me to tell him and if I'm acting like a pussy, he won't comfort me, he calls me out on it and tells me to get my shit together. It's cool. I like it. It's refreshing and easy and… he's _awesome_. It's like fucking your buddy. I never get jealous and I don't worry all night he's out sucking face with some pretty boy. I trust him cause he's so straight about everything. I don't even worry he's stringing me on cause if he really didn't like me he'd just kick my ass out!"

"Sounds great," Yami chuckled mildly. "So what are you worried about then?"

"Nothing, I guess," the blonde snorted dismissively suddenly easy. "I think I just keep expecting that I should be acting one way, cause that's how relationships are 'spose to work, but that's not how it is. I like this way better. I think I'm just bogged down with years of crap. I mean the sex was _great_and we have fun. I like living like this. He's not breathing down my neck all the time texting me asking me where I am. Girls are way too much work! It's bull crap! Guy are so easy!"

"Well fuck me, we got a convert," he laughed. "No more pussy for you."

"Fuck no." The blonde grunted.

"Well I'm a genius," Yami concluded. "Problem solved."

"Seems so," Joey agreed, grinning. "How's Yugi?"

"_Gorgeous_." It was an instinctive response but the rest was a bit of a dramatic lie. Still a lot was said in jest and slackness. "I want to punch his ex and steal him all for myself. He's so much fun. I feel like such a bad ass around him now."

"Then fucking get in there!" The blonde ordered. "Ya want him, you make him happy, and he clings to you enough! Fuck his ex and tell him to move on!"

"Not that simple." Yami shrugged easily.

"Why not? You're here, handsome and dashing, and this joker isn't. What's he got a second dick or something you don't?"

"Pftt," he snorted, "no but he and Yugi go way back. I want to respect that till they settle everything. Yugi's still in love with him big time."

"You're better," Joey challenged unhelpfully.

"You're biased." Yami retorted mildly. "I expect you to be. You're my best friend. Still, it's complicated."

"Whatever Casanova," the blonde sighed, "but at your girly gay wedding I expect you to make me the head bridesmaid. So what's the mysterious Bakura like?"

Joey snuggled down eagerly as he asked, rubbing his hands together, and Yami had to smile.

"A jackass," he drawled with emphasis.

"Oh goodie," he gobbled up, "tell me _everything._"

"Oh," Yami chuckled, "well…"

* * *

1 I couldn't resist a chapter title with a pun.

2 Okay just as a refresher:  
-Ryou is a Ferryman. It's technically a type of Reaper that answers to the Gate Keeper but doesn't remember past lives. It's like a reverse Champion in that instead of helping a Faen create balance and order a Ferryman stops a Child of Lilith from causing chaos by being the shield/punching bag. -Bakura (true name: _Akefia Last-name-to-be-revealed_) is a Child of Lilith which in the same way is a type of Seer but which reincarnates and hence has a human body. A Child of Lilith, like the Seers, answers to Supervisor Lilith (mother of all Seers. Think chaos mongering Third Star/Gate Keeper).

3 Bakura ain't going nowhere~ I love him too much and he's very handy for later villainous activities.

4 I feel like Joey and Seto have their own romantic comedy going on off screen. It's as if Joey Wheeler has his own mini-day-time movie running while Yami's living a sci-fi epic. Can't deny he is the clear cut voice of wisdom in this fic however.

5 Can I just mention briefly that _Pika92_ is incredibly awesome and has her own super sexily drawn doujinshi on live-journal? In English?

Love you guys


	13. Chameleon Circuit

Okay I have no idea what Fanfiction's problem is with uploading this chapter so my apologies for the delay. Thanks for everyone who told me it wasn't up.

Last chapter of Act 2 this week guys. Act 3 beings next week and from there on out we're facing some serious Seer chaos.

* * *

Chapter 13: _Chameleon Circuit_

A hunt, another one, was always welcome in Atemu's mind. Things had been slow the past two weeks but blissfully so. Kaiba had gathered the gang for an ice cream parlour meet up and Yugi for one of his legendary Disney nights which involved a surprising amount of alcohol. Yami was making progress with that third book of his, which did not conflict with Atemu's sense of honour, but had made no progress in unwrapping more of the Pandora's Box of memories which was perhaps for the best. He had relented from telling Yugi any details of it till he had more to go off because, detective-esque, he wanted more evidence it wasn't just some bizarre fluke.

They'd received no word from the Gate Keeper to go ahead and siege the Seers but to Yami's knowledge Yugi had warned Kaiba and Ryou of some of the developments while they waited. Yami, for his part, had done plenty of theorising with Yugi on the matter of Jenzar's location in the meantime.

"So," Yami stressed trying to construct a time line round the Chinese carton in his hand, "Jenzar's Lance was outside Tartarus but Third Star said she let something that might've been Jenzar into Sanctuary four hundred years ago which just left."

"Right," Yugi concurred carefully, "so then… either Jenzar is prisoner in Tartarus or he escaped, mauled by Seers after dropping the Lance, and made it to Sanctuary to suck energy from Third Star to try and heal."

"What do you think the Seers did to him?"

"I can't imagine anything bad enough to end up with what Third Star told us," the Faen sighed, "cause…Well there isn't any way to destroy matter for good so I don't get how the Seers could've wrecked Jenzar like that. At the same time, if they've got him, I don't know what the heck got into Sanctuary."

"So why do we want to storm the heavily guarded Seer base again?" Yami pondered chortling.

"Well, cause, A: they might have Jenzar and B: if they don't we might at least get some idea of where he is or what the fuck happened to him. Until I know what happened it's almost impossible to know where else to look for him." Yugi answered as businesslike and strategic as ever even with chopsticks in his hands and Coco in his lap. "If I know how he's wounded I can track him. If he's captured by the Seers I can beat the crud out of them and save him. We just don't have all the pieces yet."

"Least we're making progress." The Reaper decided. "That's good. I mean we've got leads at least. We know who hurt him. That narrows it down from a universe of possibilities to following one trail."

"Thank God," he chortled. "Still my hunts always feel really tedious if there's something big I'm waiting for to splash everything up. Not that I haven't had fun the past two weeks, I mean, you are getting way better at syncing with me. I'm just itching to go."

"I know." Yami assured the Faen he wasn't in the least insulted. "I like being in on this conspiracy. I think you're right though. I think I am getting better at hunting than I've ever been. These are hard hunts with you cause they're Faen hunts and, sure, I still have to depend on you because I'm still kind of blind and clueless about what we're supposed to be doing when we jump in or how to fix things but once you tell me what to do its getting easier to keep up. I just wish my energy wasn't so damn limited. I can only blow off a couple handfuls of strong spells before I'm out of gas."

"Comes with the core and the memories when you unlock them," Yugi promised. "Reapers have stamina and you're a Specialist so you're going to be _really_strong. You'll have so much energy you won't know what to do with it. You'll be shooting off dozens of powerful spells without breaking a sweat. Just takes time."

"I wish it would hurry up. I feel like I'm retarded." He grunted stirring his Chinese round. "I can't remember anything."

"I know. It's a big frustrating wall," the other sympathised, "but the deeper you get in the pool the harder it gets to keep em back. You'll remember."

"I'll never have as much power as you though." Yami supposed. "Damn Faens and their never ending, self-perpetuating, magic supply."

"You don't want one." Yugi promised playfully. "It's a pain in the ass."

"Hey," he formulated round a mouthful, "about the Lance. You said physical spells won't work here so how did the Lance become a pendant, take on physical shape, here in the Natural World?"

"Didn't," the Faen answered simply, holding the little red pendant up between his index finger and thumb. "I put it _in _the pendant. The energy of the Lance followed me into the Natural World, it's linked to my soul currently, but even though the magic followed me it didn't have a physical form. So I transferred it into the pendant, gave it something to latch onto, while I'm awake. Then when I'm asleep hunting, Astral Projecting, I gather up the magic and take it with us. Make sense?"

"Yeah," he nodded in mild fascination. He was still rather cautious of laying his hands on the pendant even more so after it had lashed out at Bakura. "Can you do that with other stuff?"

"Oh yeah," Yugi nodded. "I have necklaces and rings and earrings filled with specific spells and magic vibes for specific things. I have a bracelet that shields my core signal without me having to consciously, I have earrings that help me study and focus, I have a ring that packs an extra dose of ass kicking against enemies like an energy spike. I have heaps of stuff really. It's like making Protection Boxes. It's a combination of conscious and subconscious magic but you stir in a little bit of gem mythology and symbology. Some materials take certain vibes of magic better than others when you're working spells into them and some fade quicker."

"You never fail to astound me with cool stuff," he quirked contentedly.

"And you never fail to be great company."

"You know, it's funny," Yami pondered offhandedly. "You look really different when you're Trey to when you're Yugi. The eyes are the same, definitely, but your hair is different."

"What else?" Yugi asked round a mouthful.

"Well…" he considered it. "Your skins about the same colour, just as soft actually, but your ears are a little more elfish when you're Trey. I don't know about your toes, I only seem to see them when you're Trey, but your hands are the same. Your nose, your eyelashes, actually you know…yeah…" Yami held his carton in one hand to brush Yugi's bottom lip with the thumb of his other. "Your bottom lip's a bit more pouty when you're Atreyu, fuller, kind of."

"So I'm ugly here?" He teased.

"No, you're just more human," Yami swore affectionately. "You're still just as cute."

"Heh," Yugi giggled weakly, flashing him a glimpse of that softly reminisce smile as he titled his face from the author's gentle grip. "This body scars, gets callouses, gets old. It's only meant to last under a hundred years."

"I still think you're gorgeous." He insisted.

It felt like a lifetime since he'd held Yugi enfolded in his arms and kissed that perfectly petite bottom lip with his clumsier foraging pair. The Faen seemed a little anxious at Yami's fussing almost embarrassed really the way he averted his eyes like some virginal maiden. This near blush was not at all the forceful spitfire the author knew most frequently as Yugi's private personality.

"That's another thing," Yugi distracted, pulling his legs up onto the couch to cross underneath him. "See considering the Lance of Lazarus I don't know how Seers could've taken Jenzar down. I guess anything's possible it's just scary to think they got him before he could activate its final form."

"Final form?" Yami coughed, pulling his imagination back to the present. "You mean the trident it looked like when Timaeus first brought it to us?"

"Oh no," the Faen answered. "You know how my Faen's Needle can be a lot of different shapes? Obviously Jenzar's Lance is just like that but it's got a final emergency form, an ultimate form basically, that blows all its other disguises out of the water. It's pretty small and docile for me but it can be _massive_ when it wants to be and since it mimics Jenzar's heart it's sort of semi-aware."

"What's it look like?"

"That's a secret." Yugi winked. "I'll show you if I ever have to but until then it causes way too much of a mess just to open it up at random and, besides, it usually only works in an emergency anyway. Point is; with that it should have taken a lot of work to take down Jenzar."

"Was there anything Jenzar couldn't do?" Yami teased.

"Sometimes I was surprised he could tie his shoes." The Faen snorted. "The Seers must've caught him on an off day."

"When was it anyway?" He asked suddenly. "It was four hundred years ago, I know, but how…?"

"We were in-between reincarnations." Yugi explained. "He died a year or two before me. He should've been moving ahead but in my next lifetime he never showed up. He hasn't since then."

"How many lifetimes is that?" Yami supposed. "Four hundred years?"

"Um…" He calibrated, "about two every hundred years, roughly, so about… eight? This should be number nine."

"Shit." The Reaper sighed. "Last one you killed yourself, right?"

"Carolyn Smith," Yugi snorted nostalgically, "in the States. Everything was fifties perfect and factory new after winning the Second World War. I was a baby boomer but I only made it to the 1970s before I finally got rid of myself. "

Yami's gut twisted painfully at the concept.

"I was just _so_ lonely. I was so _sick_ of living. Ryou was out of sync with me, born in the Depression, died in Hiroshima a civilian mother of two starving. Kaiba was a ten year old boy in Alabama and by 1970 bored out of his brains till he got hit by a car. It's only because the three of us all got knocked off so unexpectedly we ended up together so close this cycle." He turned a little uncomfortably in his seat. "I hated life that time which was odd for me. I knew dying wouldn't help somehow but with my memories of being a Faen supressed I convinced myself that it would save me from the pain. It didn't of course but I like this life time better. It's less stifling. I've got you, Ryou, Kaiba, Mokuba, Joey, Amar, Sev, Morph, my Grandpa…I reincarnated to a good family and a good position this time rather than just drifting aimlessly but for a while there I really let myself go especially when Carolyn ended up in an asylum."

"I hate thinking that happened to you." He sighed.

"Ah fuck it," Yugi tossed dismissively, "I can still hear Carolyn sometimes but the rest of my past selves just tell her to shut the frig up. We've pulled ourselves back together. I'm a Faen, I'm not going to give up, but pain is something everyone has to feel sometime. I'm happier now than I have been for three hundred and ninety-nine years. So don't you worry about me."

"I don't," he promised, "I just… I hate thinking you were so alone. I love how much _you_love life and how determined you are. You're as stubborn as a mule. You give everyone strength. I hate thinking you were so… It's just sad."

"It's over." The Faen emphasised. "I'm _Yugi_now. I'm closer to my true self, to Atreyu, and I'm not going to let my eternity be miserable or bogged down. Living a lifetime like Carolyn really got all the self-pity out of my system. It was a detox, it was healthy, and now I feel better. It's just the not knowing that's hard but like I keep saying: I've got you. So I'm stellar."

"Is it hard when you find bad memories?" He prodded with mild trepidation. He still hadn't figured out how to tell Yugi about what he'd written by accident. The death scene he'd upturned.

"Yeah," Yugi nodded, "but you learn to recover and it's quicker after the first time. You're going to be a bit bowled over when you remember the first time you killed someone, or the first time you died, or watched someone die or whatever. You'll be okay though. You'll grieve a little but Reapers are built sturdy to withstand it. Lots of other types aren't meant to remember because it breaks their minds or their sense of self. The soul stores all that info to internalise but ninety precent of types can't get past that big memory wall or shouldn't. It's just worth remembering that at one point or another _everyone_has been something their current self would despise. Even me."

"What was the worst you ever were?"

"Heh," he giggled, turning the question away. "Never mind that, I feel like I'm eating the conversation. Tell me about your mum?"

"You and she will run off and ditch _me_." Yami chortled as he quoted the Faen carefully.

* * *

Atemu had seen Atreyu in an array of glorious disguises but this…

"That's…" He struggled. How to word this?

"Ridiculous." The Faen deadpanned dully.

"_Enchanting_," he breathed awed.

"I feel like an over-sized bird begging to be stuffed." Atreyu sighed as he tossed the fabric up through his fingers in a distant observation of the disguise. "Usually I prefer to be a little subtler."

"I don't believe this is a subtle dimension." Atemu answered gesturing sympathetically over his own costume. "Some kind of costume ball it seems?"

"Throughout the streets yes," the Faen concurred, relaxing minutely. "There are thousands of beings here from several dozen dimensions. They're all very peaceful however, in my experience, just prone to exuberant revelling."

"Then why summon us?"

"Guard duty." Atreyu murmured. "Like the Day of the Dead opens portals through the Veil this is a meeting place of several dimensions and during a party like this someone might not be able to resist disturbing the peace."

"Easily remedied," Atemu smirked, rather genteelly attempting to offer his arm to the Faen. "Shall we enter the festivities to better watch over them?"

"How could I resist?" He smiled. "This disguise may not be all to my tastes but there is a beautiful element to the spirit of this place. Shall we dance Atemu Pheramora?"

"A beautiful sentiment Atreyu Damestaire," he savoured the syllables, savoured the lilt of Atreyu's voice over his secret true name as he took the Faen close to his exposed body.

The realm they had entered was eccentrically charming. This was what Yami imagined medieval Venice to occur as and perhaps this place was a piece of it which had been saved from time or the inspiration for it. Delicate paper lanterns wafted unassisted, dangling, overhead like balloons in bright colours up and down the streets, over the canals and bridges, under the arch ways. The buildings were well cared for and softly golden in the hues of their tiling and stone work. Window boxes everywhere overflowed with flowers, they tumbled into the river, every house had its door flung open and extravagantly costumed creatures lined the bridges and overfilled the courtyards to dance, chatter and kiss more often than not.

Atemu's disguise included that Masquerade mask flourish he had seen pictures of. The mask itself was a fairly plain stretch of black fabric but the rest of his costume over compensated for the simplicity of it. The golden headdress, the heavy Egyptian collar, the long crimson cape, the black gold etched tunic over the thick white linen pants, the leather slippers, the cuffs… all he was missing was a shirt unsurprisingly but the night air was humid and inviting.

Now Atreyu was something to look at.

The shine of his mother-of-pearl mask almost fused with the milky white of his skin round two bright eyes intensified in their shine by the incandescence of the mask. The earrings must've been diamonds, tear drops, hiding in his thick dark hair which was heavily braided with blooming flowers. An array of roses capped the ridge of his fringe, crowning him with the fullness of the bursting petals. Those same flowers seemed to have been embroidered across his silver vest round tiny pearl buttons. A silver belt, slung low round his hip and trailing down the front of his white silk tunic over the clasp of his thighs, was nothing more than a string of gems held together like a fishing line caught round a mermaid.

The white of Atreyu's tunic just brushed the pavement, or would have, had it not been for the white ribboned ankle boots and the slight heel raising him. The tunic itself, while long, dismissed all illusion of a skirt by slitting up the sides of his thighs almost to the junction of his hips. With arms deliciously bare, bar those delicately wrought silver bracelets and the tiniest cuff of laced sleeves off his shoulders, Atemu could feel Atreyu's skin brush along the length of his chest as they walked.

The wings however had to be Atemu's favourite part of the costume. Atreyu seemed to find them garish but the six over lapping layers of various correspondingly sized pairs of wire shaped, muslin, and silver embroidered wings were mythic. The thinnest seemed to burst from the small of Atreyu's back and almost touch the pavement, the highest just on his shoulders were pixie-esque, and the remaining two sets in between were full and wide and glorious.

"The Lance?" Atemu whispered mildly as they strolled and silently Atreyu's eyes gestured down to a large ruby studded in the belt just over his pelvis. Yami envied it. Atemu, luckily, wasn't influenced by hormones.

He couldn't stretch his eyes very far down the crowded streets but to his surprise he was sure in all the energy signatures there were several large ones swirling under their feet. The roll of the energy was languid, eel like, under the paving stone and he almost asked but Atreyu leant his cheek into his shoulder.

"Sea serpents," he sighed, "in the canals. They're majestic and nothing for us to concern ourselves with. They own this city. They're a security system inbuilt into it."

"I would love to see one." Atemu had quite a preference for large supernatural beasts.

"I'll take you in a boat a little later." Atreyu promised easily. "I would rather be in the river with them."

"And take away this pretty picture?" He teased. "How could you be so cruel?"

"With surprising ease," the Faen retorted dryly. Atemu could nearly taste the other's urge to be slipping with eel strokes bare in the reeded canals of the city. It seemed rightful, natural, for Atreyu to be in such a place rather than here on the streets beside him.

"What about that dance then?" Atemu suggested as they found another booming, violin filled, courtyard with swirling courtiers round a Poseidon sculpted fountain in smooth marble.

"That I can enjoy," Atreyu allowed. "I'll let you lead shall I?"

"If you'd be so kind?" He chuckled as they girded the edge of the dance floor to ready themselves.

"Just this once."

Atemu was anxious, frozen nearly, and it was only Atreyu's momentum that urged him to take the Faen's waist under his left hand and grasp his milky white hand in the other as Atreyu rested its twin on his shoulder.

This was an entirely old world form of dance. There was pattern to it that Atemu's astral body seemed to follow effortlessly but all of the intertwined dancers seemed to show no preference for switching partners at any point. He quite liked that. He steadied himself and let Atreyu's light feet carry them round the fountain in a slow circuit. Atemu led but Atreyu, enfolded in his arms, still seemed to hold all the influence in his delicate grasp. Any motion of the Faen would be enough to stop Atemu's attuned body or give him permission to continue.

As it was he drifted. Atemu scanned the area with every swirl as they lingered in the courtyard for long motions and moments. While Yami or the more human part of him only took time to really see Atreyu's face and feel Atreyu's lithe form pressed into their strong posture. This was all Atemu wanted. He wasn't as physical as Yami. Being here he had no hormones but if he could spend forever dancing with Atreyu he would be content. If he could kiss that bare forehead, that cheek, press his lips even to a downy upper arm or an ankle every few decades he would be at peace. If he never lifted Atreyu up into his arms, a virginal bride, and carried the fairy off into one of the sensually thrown open houses to lay him on someone else's bed and devour he would survive.

Hands hooking at his waist Atemu hefted the Faen off his feet and almost over his head in a twirl, making him laugh twinkling, on an impulse. When he deposited him back on the tiles without ever stopping Atreyu's body leant more trustingly into his grasp, Atemu's lips against his forehead, the flowers crowning Atreyu filling his nostrils with bountiful perfume. Atemu considered it then, as Yami would have, considered throwing Atreyu over his shoulder like a conquering Pharaoh and finding some alcove to slip in between those tender thighs if they would have him.

How could Jenzar stand to be away from this? With living, human, Yugi or here, in a dream, with heavenly Atreyu how could any beating heart resist the temptation to stay forever? Like a traveller or a sailor lured to a doomed eternity forsaking mankind for some ethereal creature of old Atemu was spellbound after a taste. Jenzar must've been understandably charmed by the Faen and Atemu couldn't have blamed him. If he had permission to call Atreyu his, to taste his treasures, he would have defended his claim ruthlessly. He could have even been possessive. Would've locked the Faen up like a sacred relic somewhere distant and lonely but Atreyu was not his.

No. Atreyu was a living, immortal and eternal being with a heart that could not be satisfied by passing fancies or changed by a thousand years. Atreyu would mourn for an eternity, if need be, and Atemu could picture the Faen on a hilltop staring out to sea for his missing lover till he turned to stone and humans ceased to be and rabbits sung songs about them.

"Atreyu?" He whispered, both of his dark hands resting adoringly on that tight knit waist, as the Faen lulled them to a stop. "What is it little one?"

The Faen seemed to be looking beyond Atemu, beyond everything, into the crowd around them with both his tender hands lost on Atemu's shoulders. He seemed bewitched.

"Trey what's wrong?" He pressed hushed as his thumbs worried the bottom of Atreyu's winglike ribcage through the vest. He was so wrapped in Atreyu's expression of entranced awe he barely scanned the crowd the Faen was gazing off into.

"_Stay here_." The Faen murmured hoarsely and, a breeze, drifted clean out of his arms to weave through the dancers.

Atemu followed him with hungry eyes and when he almost lost sight of the Faen followed on hesitant feet as well. Order or no order he would not let the Faen be lost from his sight given the dangers that surrounded them regularly.

He could not see what had so fascinated, distracted and disturbed Atreyu until the Faen had almost reached it.

The man was youthful, little more than Atemu's age perhaps, but sombrely regal and looking dreadfully lost in the crowd as if he had stumbled into a royal ball off some harsh street or perhaps, in this case, from some other dimension along the Veil. The confusion in his eyes stretched deep beyond the surface of his expression. The man was more than dazed or lost. He was hopelessly bamboozled by his surrounding to the point where his lack of comprehension seemed to both frighten and pain him.

He was handsome, undeniably so, with his hair hidden under a dark turban the tail of which hung in a long strip down his back. He was wiry but broad boned, tall but almost slender and athletic. His skin was as honey-gold brown as Atemu's but that was where the similarity ended. His eyes were a much deeper, much fuller, much older, swatch of vermillion-crimson like the Lance of Lazarus was a blood stone to Atemu's garish stop-light red eyes. A finely etched, glyphic, tattoo covered his right cheek in inky, total, black and the curves of it reminded Atemu of the Hive somehow.

He was wearing armour. Not cotton armour like Atemu often did but steely black and silver plates of it. His red cape was torn, burnt, in patches and that same armour cracked, rusted, missing or lopsided in places as if he had just fallen out of tumble with a dragon. The scabbard on his hip too sat empty and his gloves appeared to have been ripped off of his bruised, bloody, fingers.

He was a sore thumb out of place but in this tumbling, extravagant, realm no one paid him any heed at all.

No one except Atreyu.

The Faen had reached him now and, ever so gently, raised a quaking set of fingertips to trace the curve of that distinctive tattoo. The man jumped, as if waking from a daze, and seemed to notice Atreyu for the first time surprised anyone was paying him any attention at all. The pleading desperation, the confusion, in his eyes was heart wrenching as he found the Faen's face just below his. Atreyu traced every curved of that tattoo with an ancient knowledge of it which churned Atemu's voyeuristic stomach.

Atreyu mumbled something up to the young man who was quite clearly transfixed by the Faen above all else now. Atemu couldn't hear it but he knew those syllables, the shape of that word on Atreyu's lips, well enough by now.

"_Jenzar…?_" The Faen seemed to question appealingly.

Either the young man was too dumbstruck to answer or didn't know how because he made no response gaping stupidly at the fairy who was just as entranced by his presence.

So that was what devastatingly handsome Jenzar Fraveous looked like damaged? Had something stolen his face? Didn't he remember? Either way Atreyu was far too spooked to not be sure and Atemu trusted he knew those features inside and out after four billion years of memorising them. Horrid, jealous, anxiety filled his stomach icily but Atemu knew he had no permission to intrude even now.

The man, the haphazardly wounded knight, appeared uncertain of what to do but didn't hesitate to throw his arms round the Faen and lift Atreyu of his feet. He buried his face in Atreyu's neck desperately. Atreyu flushed vermillion and scrambled to throw his arms round his shoulders as the young man clung to him sweeping him off the pavement. Atreyu held him in his arms, let himself be held clumsily, and continued to pet that startlingly handsome face till both of them seemed to shake.

Atemu allowed himself to slink a little closer but held back from truly entering this fray.

Atreyu paid no heed or simply didn't notice at all. The man relented his grip. Embarrassed and trying to stutter still dreadfully unsure of everything as he ever so reverently lowered Atreyu back to his feet. He seemed to think the Faen was a glass charm he might break but hushing him Atreyu held his cheeks in both his soft hands and brought their noses together to soothe him.

So this was the ruin that was left of Jenzar Fraveous? Was it over? All of Yami's secret dreaming and hoping down the drain for eternity? Had the Seers wounded him so badly that after re-assembling the pieces of himself the Champion had still been too injured to find his way home to the Hive? Had he bled out almost all of his memories? It seemed so. Atreyu must've been thinking it because the Faen's fingers were quaking as they fluttered over and over across that tattoo for the tenth time.

Atreyu lowered his hands, took the man's hand and nodding curtly to Atemu led the distraught creature out of sight through a back garden gate to some forgotten alcove the party hadn't yet invaded.

Atemu felt himself wither.

His heart throbbed as if it was really beating in his astral chest. Yami wanted him to cry but Atemu was too soothed by his nature to sob openly. He felt it though as an acute stabbing pain within the regions of his heart. Atreyu was gone, Atreyu would not be his after tonight, no…Oh please no…

He felt so despicably selfish, raw with loathing for the universe itself, as he quaked trapped in place.

He waited.

Atreyu would not leave without giving him orders, plucking him up too, but a moment turned to two and still nothing. Atemu would give them their time respectfully.

The dance changed tunes.

Something stirred the sea serpents under his feet in the water under the city. He could feel them swimming a little faster to find something, heal something, something…

Something was _wrong_.

Atemu ran as much as the thick crowd would allow. Weaving through them till he hit the back garden fence and throwing his shoulder into it wrenched the door open.

"Atrey-"

Atemu was paralysed in horror, voice choked, as he fell into his feet at the sight.

The man's face had cracked in some squabble and the handsome façade was now splintered like a porcelain mask ready to shatter. He was growling low and thick in a richly stolen baritone as he tried to keep Atreyu forced into the plush, grassy, ground.

"_Ahh!_"

Atreyu hissed, broken and high as the thing dug its fingers through his delicate costume and into his chest. Atemu could see blood. The thing was steadied on one arm, sitting on Atreyu's squirming legs, its other hand trying to rip into the Faen's chest as Atreyu's hand pushed at its wrist and its shoulder.

It all happened in seconds.

"A-ah!" Atreyu was choking round the pain to struggle to speak when suddenly he found his voice: "_RADIANT EXECUTION!_"

The thing cracked, grunted in a tone that never wavered from masculine, and in an all-consuming explosion of light evaporated like bug under a magnifying glass. Atreyu, who had half risen in the effort, slumped back onto the grass and senseless Atemu threw himself across the plush carpet of emerald to tug and wrap the Faen up in his arms.

"Trey!" He railed. "Are you alright? What happened?"

"B-bull Seer." He spluttered, coughing, voice finding strength. "A strong, clever, one and it caught me off guard like a common fool."

"Are you…?" Atemu's hand fumbled between them over Atreyu's bleeding chest as the blood began to soak down through the layers of his tunic.

"I'll be fine Atemu," the Faen dismissed casually. "It hurts but I will be back to normal in a few hours. See? The bleeding's already slowing."

Still it was wet, tangy, and metallic between them.

"What was it trying to do to you?" He hissed, still panic stricken as he tried to clutch the Faen without doing more damage.

"I don't know." Atreyu mused a little vaguely. "No one has tried that before."

"You don't look well Trey," he whined, "I should take you back to the Hive."

"We have to finish the guard." The Faen insisted struggling to move out of Atemu's arms and stand back on his own two feet.

The Reaper wouldn't allow it. He pressed Atreyu into his chest, clutched him, hand fumbling up and down his back, cradling his skull as Atemu's thumb made tiny rotations on the back of Atreyu's neck. What seemed like blood but wasn't in reality throbbed between them onto Atemu's bare skin. This was the most damaged he had ever seen the Faen. Not just weakened but wounded. It was surreal, frightening, like a nightmare encroaching on a ballad.

"No," Atemu shook his head stubbornly, "you need to recover."

"I am not making the Gate Keeper call in reinforcements because I was an idiot." Atreyu retorted equally determined but clearly tired. "There's no need. This is minor damage Atemu. I can still fight."

"Your wings are crushed, you look like you've been in a brawl," he argued.

"What do I care? I have." The Faen snorted. "Never mind the damn costume. It's irrelevant."

"You'll stick out like a sore thumb."

"This is a world of sore thumbs."

"_What happened?_"

Atemu lurched, squeezing Atreyu much too tight to his body, as the hiss wafted up from the inbuilt fountain trickling down the far wall of the garden. The Faen's hands pushed at his pectoral as if he were a cat tied up too tight.

"Relax," Atreyu whispered, "it's just the sea serpents. All's well! Threat neutralised!"

"_Who has dared to harm a Sacred Star in our city?_"

"A Seer!" The Faen croaked.

"_Are you injured?_"

"Only a scratch!" He assured flippantly, bleeding in Atemu's arms, as stubborn as he ever was.

"_Come to the river,_" the low, lulling, hisses urged. "_We will repay you for your service._"

"You best go accept their gift." Atreyu ordered.

"I'm not letting you out of my sight!" He hissed lowly.

"Please Atemu," he groaned weakly. "I don't need you to make me feel any more ridiculous and helpless than I already do. A handsome man puts his arms round me and my senses promptly fall out my ears."

Atemu had a dreadful thought, an idea, of what might've happened. Had their masquerading assassin attempted to steal a kiss? Had Atreyu almost folded thinking it was his wounded Jenzar?

Atemu had never hated Seers more than when Atreyu pushed his ruffled hair back with blood stained fingers and, refusing to meet Atemu's eyes in shame, checked his own wound with careful fingers utterly disrespectful of his momentarily grand disguise. This was embarrassing for Atreyu Damestaire. Worse was Atemu's own relief that the Seer had not been the real Jenzar Fraveous.

Funnily enough, he cursed, he and Jenzar weren't so far unalike in appearance when he was Atemu. Sure when he was awake, when he was Yami, he paler from the climate, the breeding, and his eyes were duller indigo but his true astral form, the reflection of his soul, wasn't so far off.

"Follow me," Atreyu ordered blandly, squirming out of Atemu's momentarily slack arms to make himself steady on his feet with his arms out by his sides blood still dripping from the hem of his tunic. "If you won't let me out of sight we best go see them together and finish this."

"Let me help you," Atemu pleaded as he allowed himself to follow, slipping his arm almost round Atreyu's waist but was too hesitant to really touch the Faen.

"Let me walk on my own two feet at least Atemu," the Faen sighed and suddenly Atemu was overcome by a surge of frustration unaccustomed.

"No!" He retorted stoutly to Atreyu's and his own surprise. "It is my duty to protect you. I won't allow you to be so stubborn always. I won't be separate from you while we hunt ever again. If you had let me face this with you then you would have been safe. I should have argued."

"Atemu," the Faen baulked bemusedly, "the Gate Keeper placed us together so I could protect you! It was a punishment!"

"Whatever he _meant_ he _said _that I was to protect you. So I intend to do just that and I shall not be reasonable about it anymore." Atemu retorted with sharp finality and in the most curt manner he could manage, still burning with frustrated determination, hooked his arm under Atreyu's knees and heaved the stunned Faen into his arms like a bride bouncing him once to better assert his balance.

"You cannot seriously-"

"This is what the Gate Keeper meant, I'm sure, about Faen's being so contrastingly vulnerable. You're so stubborn you hardly ever know when to pull back and stop for you own sake. You're so busy keeping myself or someone else safe you forget about your own fate. The Gate Keeper himself told you not to be so self-sacrificial." Atemu would listen to no argument on the matter and Atreyu appeared not to know what to do with his authority dismissed. "I may not be a Champion but I am not helpless. I can protect you."

"Atemu…" The Faen murmured, rendered speechless, as he was forced to rest one stained hand on the firm tendons of the Reaper's neck and for perhaps the first time Atemu could truly savour how light and tiny the being was in his grasp.

"Well shall go accept their gift," he decided, letting himself ease gently, "but if you still look so unwell afterwards I am taking you home if I have to throw you over my shoulder."

"Alright…" The stunned wisp conceded.

Not one of the revellers paid them any heed when Atemu carried Atreyu back onto the street. As a matter of fact a few of them seemed quite amused, winked, and blew kisses through drunken giggles. They must've looked as if they had a story. Atreyu was secluded within himself however, arms lax round Atemu's neck in surrender while he rested his cheek into the Reaper's gold plated clavicle. He was so small for an entity who stood so tall and who could so fill a room.

Atemu only relented to let Atreyu out of his arms when they found a secluded canal in the back streets of the city and sunk to their waists into the water. When it rose up round him Atemu was surprised by the languid warmth of it and sighing Atreyu dunked himself entirely, briskly, coming back through the surface with his bloody costume clinging and dyeing the water. Atemu could feel reeds against his flank as Atreyu plucked the flowers from his crown and set them back on the pavement behind them. In the dull din Atreyu reminded him of a performer at their vanity stripping down, exhausting, from a night of playing some great charade. What _was_ Atreyu like when he let his hair down? What was Yugi like?

The water lapped, rising in an abrupt tide, as the serpents forced their way into the tight space slipping dangerously close till Atemu could feel noses nudge past him. Atreyu laughed, soft and tired. The water charmed him when it was this primordial.

"_You are wounded._" One hissed and in the darkness of the night and the lantern shadows Atemu could only make out the briefest elements of their silhouettes in the water. The serpent slunk in very close its snout butting Atreyu's navel and gently the Faen ran his fingers over the grooves of its head just under the surface.

"My core will see to it that I'm back to perfect health shortly." He confided politely. "Never fear."

"_It must have been a deviously powerful monster,_" it supposed. "_You rid the city of it. We thank you both._"

"My body guard deserves all the acclaim." Atreyu diverted. "Gift him if you would praise anyone."

"_Then we shall._"

* * *

Atemu had balls. Yami was actually pretty proud of that. The bravery necessary to tell Atreyu Damestaire, who could destroy him on a whim, what to do had mercifully carried over enough into waking Yami to coax himself to check on Yugi after last night's hunt. Faen core or no Faen core Atemu was taking his latest vow to heart and it had seeped all the way through Yami. They agreed on almost everything these days since Yami had acknowledged that little fact that, oh yeah, Atemu was real.

It was a decent hour this time and the sun was warm on his back through the tee. Not like the last time he'd come pounding on Yugi's door in the middle of the night, howling on the porch like some overgrown alley cat demanding to be let in. He rapped the door with the back of his knuckles again and when there was no answer ferreted in his pockets. He'd secured himself a set of keys at some recent point in their alliance but he wasn't above breaking in anymore. The casual rules of human practicality sort of ceased to apply after a while.

He knew Yugi might be out. If he was Yami would apologise later but he also knew the Faen might be hurt somehow after last night and that concern outweighed any other politeness in the forefront of his mind. His keys changed through all five of the locks and pushing the door apart only a fraction he let himself in without disturbing the salt line in the carpet.

"Yugi?" He called.

In hindsight he could've stretched his senses to feel if the Faen was inside the house puppet mastering all the strings of magic throughout it but the thought didn't consciously occur to him till he was up the stairs.

"Yugi?" He attempted gently once more rapping the bedroom door. "You in there?"

"_Hmm_," was the muffled little moan he received for his trouble and, chuckling, Yami let himself in.

Yugi was sprawled half on his stomach, half on his side, under the tapestry print quilt soaking up the residual heat of the blankets he'd piled up round him and the late morning sun. Yami sat upon the edge of the mattress, feeling it give to his weight, and tried not to raise his voice more than necessary.

"You gotten out of bed all morning?" He had his suspicions.

"Showered," Yugi contradicted groggily, shuffling a little more onto his side to force his eyelids apart for Yami. "Then fell back asleep again."

"Are you okay?" The author fussed, the inside of his palm skirting under Yugi's fringe to brush his forehead before the hand rotated to allow the back of his palm the same privilege. "You feel hot."

"That thing muddled up my core," he explained exhausted. "It's sending out masses of energy like always but all the channels are mixed up. It's like I've got my wires tangled. I just need a little while to sort it out and I'll be fine. Just want to sleep all day."

"You want me to stay?" Yami asked hopefully as the fingers of his lingering palm ran through softly damp tendrils of hair round Yugi's face.

"You mind?" He murmured. "I don't feel up to fighting anything today."

"Nah its cool," he promised. "You want anything?"

"Cuddle?" Yugi sighed hopefully. "I feel gross."

"Sure." He chuckled, kicking off his sneakers and laying out his accessories on the bedside table as Yugi shuffled back a little to make room for the larger body.

"You going to stay all Commander on me from now on?" Yugi joked.

"You bet," Yami swore almost playfully threatening as he tugged back the quilt to make himself comfortable, "I like looking out for you."

"And you thought you'd never be able to go all Prince Charming on my ass."

Yami had to smile. It was a turbulent memory from when they were pretending to date or rather when _Yugi_ was pretending to date and Yami had felt incapable which to a point he supposed he always would.

"Someone has to apparently," he teased back, twisting to his side and unfurling his arms so Yugi could shuffled against him and bury into the warmth of natural body heat.

Yugi lay into him in the most natural way in the world, nuzzling down into his neck, his arm curling round Yami's side to grasp the shirt between the shoulder blades he idly took to tracing every few inhalations. Yami exhaled, let tension roll out of him, and distantly wished the sky would darken with rain. That pitter-patter sound rumbling the glass panes of the window would've been the perfect accompaniment to the shadows of the bedroom and the lulling warmth of being tangled under the sheets jeans to cotton PJs.

Yugi's skin was still damp from the shower and it had left a softly sodden, gooey, texture to the sheets all round them that was nearly cloying. Yami held him softly, as the Faen became numb and dazed in his arms, and then flexed to hold him ever so much more securely. Yugi's burrowed his face deeper against his clavicle, his neck, as if he wanted to hide inside Yami's skin and soothed by the ease of it Yami couldn't resist stroking strands of hair or kissing his temple.

There was a slow rhythm beating between them and contentment gave way to tension inside Yami's gut. He felt himself on a very tender precipice pushing subtly to see where the defences to this castle would snap up. They stretched, re-aligning, sagging and fidgeting for comfort's sake. Yami's back ached mildly, driving him conveniently to lean more into his stomach for balance, one jean clad leg resting on Yugi's which parted languidly to let them tangle closer. Yami closed his eyes tighter suddenly viciously, acutely, aware of the details of sensation. Yugi's mouth almost, just almost, open against his neck. Yugi's damp fringe was tickling under his chin. Yugi's fingers between his shoulder blades while Yami's leg lay between shifting, hot, thighs barely brushing against his through thin fabric. Temptation weaselled a little deeper, little tighter, in his belly and sent heat lower.

Yami remembered this feeling. He remembered being sixteen on the couch with his first girlfriend. He remembered embraces that lingered through movies that served as a farcical cover for more testing activities. He remembered holding her, brushing and petting till the pair of them pushed a little too sexually this way or slid their hand a little too far under the hem of that piece of clothing. He remembered the heat, the stupidity, the guilt, and the burning lust which muffled it all in the moment till the sting sunk in later. He remembered this same half-conscious interplay of actions. It was a seesaw on the part of both participants to see who would break, who would push for more, after a long procession of tiny torturous hints leading each player on. He had thought he was too old to fall under this curse so far out of high school.

Was Yugi aware of it? In these moments when he should've known better Yami could never read his opponent well enough to determine. Lust, heat, passion clouded all of that. These were the kinds of games Yami lost but…

He traversed the precipice longer, feeling the edge of the sword, drawing his knee back in then out again to very casually brush his thigh between Yugi's and the Faen snuggled closer. He kissed his forehead once, twice, thrice… forgot how to breathe…

He wanted Yugi. Since the second he'd met him he'd wanted to kiss and lick and rock and hold greedily. He was a man not a martyr. This was what the Natural World did to his restraint and the restraint of every other soul surely. Surely he wasn't the only Reaper who became an animal when he was awake? _Fuck_. He had convinced himself somewhere that it would be easier not to have Yugi forever if he could just have him for a little while. If he could just have this lifetime, or this year or this day then maybe…

No human being stopped when they stoked the fire this long from languid tinder to burning, consuming, totality whatever common sense said. Yami fell a little, stroking Yugi's hair from his face, kisses wandering with a soft kind of appealing desperation down his cheeks and over his nose. Yami just wanted him. Nothing more complicated than that. Yami's heart had thrown out the rule book with this starved hunger that numbed logic. He just wanted Yugi equally half with passion and half for adoration. Yugi made him feel special. He felt alive now, felt like something new and true and timelessly wild. That inner animal couldn't comprehend _why_ then they couldn't have this something that made them this happy, this hungry, and this bloodthirsty.

If Jenzar had been here he would have killed him. Yami was a traitor in spirit if not in deed, not yet, and he probably couldn't make himself apologise.

He held them together. Yugi pushed into him ever so slightly and Yami snapped. Cupping his cheek he brought their lips together. It _burnt_. Yami's whole heart contorted with blooming joy and withering horror but his body was scolded by an unrivalled desire. He'd never wanted anyone else like this. Yugi's fingers curled in his shirt and Yami wrapped him up tighter.

Yami's thought was unpunctuated by reason. It wafted through the back of his senses as a current of regretful pain but in that moment he was too hazed with the satisfaction of temporary lust to care. Yami was sure he was damaging Yugi with that bitter grip, bruising his lips with a second harsh kiss that refused to let them unbuckle, hand wandering brave and senseless under Yugi's shirt with the boldness of a suicidal warrior. He rubbed the cove where ribcage and hip became waist, the soft plush of the navel, before wrapping back to drag his hand up between Yugi's shoulder blades for the start of another intense kiss.

Yugi's hand fell from his back, grasped his shoulder and forearm and applied insistent but non-brutal pressure. Yami barely noticed. One arm secured round his shoulders, tongue running along the stubbornly sewn seam of Yugi's lips, the other fondling the bare alcove of the small of Yugi's arched back. His knee, thigh, flexed between the Faen's thighs and brazen in his kiss Yami let his hand fall a little lower under the giving elastic of Yugi's waistband to glide over the pert arse. Yugi's hands became more insistent, reluctantly forceful, between them and as he gasped Yami's tongue touched his. Yugi's mouth was tight and wet and trying to coax his tongue to play Yami felt the Faen shudder, swoon, with rebounding heat.

Yugi pushed at him suddenly, hands rough, and panicked like an animal Yami fell back, grip wavering, as Yugi scrambled haphazardly over him and stumbled into the en suite. Yami dragged himself to his shoulders, bewildered, as he watched the Faen dart out of sight with his cotton pants lower than ever round his hips.

Half a second later Yami heard the Faen wretch over the toilet bowl, the unpleasant plunking of vomit slapping water following, and torn between personal disgust he tossed back the sheets to force himself out of the contaminated bed.

_Fuck!_

* * *

1 '_Chameleon Circuit_' is a Dr Who inspired band who do a fantastic song called '_Exterminate Regenerate_' which I am addicted to.

2 "_Matter cannot be created or destroyed only reshaped" _is a principle most of you will recognise from Chemistry. Yugi works by the same principle. You cannot destroy a soul but you can rip it to pieces, reshape it and reform it like the Seers pull themselves back together in different shapes after Atreyu destroys them.

3 Yep, Yugi finally explained the pendant/Lance of Lazarus hopefully to everyone's satisfaction.

4 Remember when Yugi told Yami that in his past three reincarnations he was a nun, a serial killer and then an institutionalized suicidal? Well that last, most recent, past life is Carolyn Smith (who may or may not pipe up in the future).

5 Atemu's Pharaoh Costume is the same one we see in Seto's first Ishizu induced flashback and also the same one we seem when Noah tries to break into Yami's mind in the virtual world.

6 No reference for Yugi/Atreyu's costume sadly but blame Teenie for that one scene involving Yugi's kimono in Frost King.

7 In "_The Last Unicorn_" concerning Lady Amalthea (mild inspiration for Atreyu) Molly says: '_She will remember you when men are fairy tales and books are written by rabbits'._ Which I always adored especially since it's a surprisingly dark, classic, movie.


	14. When the World Falls Down

Hey guys and so begins Act 3! Morphis returns along with his two siblings and a few more familiar or distorted faces. Here's hoping you enjoy the newest push into action.

* * *

Chapter 1: Act 3: _When the World Falls Down_

Yami spent the rest of the day on Yugi's couch. They would pretend it didn't happen. They would just pretend Yami hadn't snapped too far and that Yugi hadn't, for a second, allowed it. They were both guilty here of submitting to temptation. Guilt mixed with anger, hatred, directed between himself and Yugi. It was easy to blame Yugi, Yugi was an older soul and Yugi was the one who owed loyalty, fealty, to Jenzar not Yami.

Atemu wouldn't let him be that ridiculously self-serving or ambitious however because a gentleman didn't touch a brother's lover whatever the seductive temptation. Yami had a backbone to maintain, if he was to be brave, and Yugi was sick, tangled at the soul, when Yami had promised to protect him. Yami had taken advantage of that weakness, predatorily as far as Atemu saw it and running his hand through his hair Yami had to reconsider his opinion.

No, Atemu gave them both a shove, they were better than this. They were better than they had acted. Atemu was sure of that, Atemu was a chivalrous Knight, and strongly courageous as the core of Yami he pushed them back to their feet from the couch.

_Face it_, he urged them both, _be a gentleman. If you fall off the wagon the best thing to do is just get back on._

Yami hesitated, standing dumb in the lounge, but Atemu was insistent they could do this. Atemu was sure that Yami, the other side of himself, was just as brave as he was and could be just as strong against the natural forces of the world hormones and all.

_Go on,_ he whispered, _we can do it_.

Nodding stupidly to himself Yami let motion creep into their limbs and faced the terrifying mount up the stairs to where Yugi had collapsed back into the bed weakly. He could do this.

The Faen glanced, sickly pallid, from the pillow and very cautious of himself and his own weakness Yami knelt on the carpet by the bed rather than taking a seat on the mattress. Gripping the edge of the bed he rested his chin on it like a child to smile with the deepest wealth of compassion at the Faen's sweat licked face. Yugi eased, fractionally, and torn internally smiled gently back as his fingers crept, clammy, from under the quilt to rest his fingertips on Yami's knuckles. They'd both slipped.

"Feel any better?" Yami pestered mildly trying to scrape up his courage.

"Yeah," Yugi promised, "thanks Yami. You don't have to hang around here if you're bored."

"No, I want to be here," he assured inhaling deeply as he prompted himself to continue. "I'm sorry. I went too far. I shouldn't have touched you like that."

"I should have stopped you." His tiny companion frowned.

"You get a pass." Yami chuckled twisting his hand to scratch his fingertips along the inside of Yugi's palm without bringing them any closer. "I got a pass for being the only Reaper to ever ride the special bus and take four years to realize it was real. You get a pass too every now and again. You're not perfect, I know that, you miss him and you're lonely and you're sick and we should both know better. I'm sorry."

"I'm sorry too." Yugi swore. The Faen leant, tension evaporating, at the understanding and the sympathy which somehow eased the guilt in both of them through acknowledgement. "I don't want to make life hard for you. I'm just so_ fucking _clingy."

"It's okay." He shrugged. "I really like how much you like me. It's nice to know I'm special to you when you're so special to me. You know, even before I met you here, I think you were a special character. I just don't think I appreciated it as much till I met you. It's hard to think someone like you can actually exist."

Yugi's fingers tightened round his wrist.

"I really took a shine to you when we met, the first time, four years ago on that hunt. I know I'm not good at showing it, especially when I'm Atreyu, but that's only cause I'm so paranoid. When you published those books and I thought you must be rotten at the core it was so depressing. Then when I found you in person, even though I hated you, it was weird." Yugi confessed. "Cause you were just as much of a honey as I thought you were the first time. It's kind of like I got you back."

"I don't ever want to stop being part of your life," Yami swore, "even if we just have to be friends. I'm scared about finding Jenzar but I know when I see how happy he makes you it'll be easy. When I get my memories back it'll be easy to find someone to love. Then we can still have each other around. You're way too cool, I can't imagine not having you around anymore, I'd just be bored."

"Thanks for forgiving me." The Faen whispered. "It's… hard being Atreyu. People have expectations and even if I want to be close with them, even if I trust them enough to let them see me like this, and tell them everything I hesitate because I worry about looking weak. If I didn't have people I could tell the truth to, if I had to pretend this part of me didn't exist all the time, I'd go really nuts. I'm so Atreyu I can't _not_be him and actually be myself. If I'm just trying to be Yugi Motou then it's an effort, it's a mask, trying to be normal."

"You trust me, after all this," Yami chuckled. "I don't know how I get you to keep forgiving me. I'm just so glad you do. I actually like myself more now. It's hard to be Atemu but I like that I am. I like myself. I haven't ever really felt like that. I always feel a little inferior to someone or another but you guys, you and the others, you make being Atemu something worth doing and something to be proud of. I love it."

"I'm sorry about today." Yugi reiterated. "I'm so sorry."

"Me too," he repeated sincerely, "can we just be normal again? Just put it away as a stupid fuck-up and be us?"

"_Yes_," the Faen exhaled tensely, "please. I hate being awkward with you. We're okay?"

"We're fine." He promised squeezing Yugi's wrist in his.

"You're great," he murmured, "you know that right?"

"I'm starting to believe you." Yami beamed. "Do I have to tell you again how amazingly incredible you are? Not just when you're all official but when you're relaxed and silly and cute and you?"

"Why haven't I met you before?" The Faen hissed, joyful but passionate. "I swear to God. If I'd met you a couple of centuries before we'd be just as close as Kaiba and the rest of the Earth gang. I'm going to find you again next time. We're a good team. You're fantastic. I can be _me_around you."

"We'll meet up next reincarnation, okay?" Yami promised.

"You're never getting rid of me."

"Wouldn't want to." He laughed. "Who doesn't want a Faen on their side? Someone pisses me off I'm calling you in. You'll thrash them."

"You bet." Yugi swore. "No one's allowed to be this much of a stupid mess with you. Next time someone tries to break your heart on purpose I'll show them what for. It can be my karma."

* * *

"Cobalt?" Atemu baulked as he settled from his phase in.

The Watcher grunted arms stitched across his chest primly as he leant waiting for the Reaper. They were in the Hive Atemu knew, before opening his eyes really, from the soothed quell in his bones that told him from the first second he had no reason to be tense. Cobalt was very much like himself here as when he was Kaiba: fittingly tall, blue robed and sour looking. Atemu found it momentarily surreal that, for the first time, he was actually pleasantly surprised to see his least favourite Watcher.

"Took you long enough Pheramora," Cobalt scoffed, but even that was gentle. Not using his full name was a mark of distance in a relationship here but using his last name rather than his first still implied some intimacy between them.

"I'd apologize but it would be wasted on you." He teased more than he snapped unable to restrain his grin. "Is Atreyu here yet?"

"With Amar and Seviticus in one of the secondary court yards," he answered. "Little Faen thought he could order me to come and wait for you."

"Seems he was right."

"Unfortunately," Cobalt heaved sourly. "I've consented to taking orders for a while. Don't get too used to it."

"Get used to you being reasonable?" Atemu snorted. "This dream is too realistic for something so absurd. I may as well wish for you to take instruction from me."

"_Hah_," the Watcher dripped with sarcasm but still his bite was relented, "the day I fall under the command of a fool like you will be the very same day I crumble into non-existence. The Seers will have to win the war before _that _happens."

"See?" He grinned. "You're as unlikeable and repugnant as ever."

"And you," Cobalt sassed, "are still the most fool hardy and brainless Reaper ever to set foot in the Hive. It makes me curious how, if it took you four years to acknowledge reality, you manage to remember all those elegant words for spell casting."

"I don't," Atemu laughed. "I just copy Atreyu."

"Hmm," the Watcher snorted as, restraining themselves, they took stride towards the secondary courtyard.

Cobalt was elegant in his stride even if unfriendly in his ever sneering expression. Atemu could appreciate his finer qualities these days unabated now by years of smarmy, generally unanimously consented upon, dislike ebbing between them. Oh he and Cobalt would always fail to agree, he was certain, but it was harder now for the Watcher to seem so dastardly or Atemu so block headed now they shared a home. They were, whether they liked it or not, part of the same coven round Atreyu and that was a secret family. If Yami and Kaiba had learnt to co-exist playfully then Cobalt and Atemu, more mellowed, had no hope of resisting it.

Amar and Atreyu were deep in conversation when Atemu entered the fray. The redheaded Champion had rested his arm diligently round Atreyu's waist, fingers on his hip, with the most filial smiles passing between them. They were still, after long periods of separation, heavily bonded. Atemu would not be surprised if Amar had taken some responsibility upon himself to guard over Atreyu as they searched for his dearest brother Jenzar. Atemu was sure too that Jenzar would have done the same for Amar somehow. They were almost twins.

"Atemu Pheramora!" Seviticus greeted boldly, not far off, and grinning Atemu was pleased to be so well received by the Champion.

Atreyu and Amar cast him their smiles, still deeply conversing, and Atemu had barely reached Seviticus striding towards him when another voice rang out amongst the accumulated individuals surrounding them.

"Atemu?" Morphis twigged over his shoulder from where he had been distracted, surprisingly, in a debate with Timaeus of all people. "Greetings brother!"

"Morphis!" Atemu waved, laughing, bowing a little back to his nearest companion, "and Seviticus my friend."

"You look much better than when I last saw you." Seviticus appraised patting his shoulder solemnly. "Guard work agrees with you."

"Thank you, brother."

"You should come hunting with me," Morphis piped when intruding upon them, "if you haven't yet found your speciality. I'm sure you'd like dragons."

"That would be a pleasure," Atemu nodded keenly. He had been enfolded amongst these names as one of their rank. It was a great honour even with Cobalt rolling his eyes and leeching towards Timaeus. "What is going on however? I'm amazed to see so many important faces."

"The Gate Keeper has given us the all clear," Amar gestured, still holding Atreyu to his flank. "We're to assemble a force to storm the Tartarus nest of Seer Queen Cassidia. We will call brothers and train. Seviticus, myself and Morphis have already consented to join the fight."

"Even our sly Cobalt has put his hand in the pot to fight." Atreyu remarked amusedly. "Which I am grateful for but I suspect it's only so he can have a front row seat in watching the proceedings."

"Of course," the Watcher did not refute, "would I sully my hands for less?"

"I am grateful too that Dartz could spare you leave Timaeus," Atreyu continued. "You will be a remarkable asset. I can't tell you how grateful I am for your time."

"We have to mend the past eventually," the Guardian supposed, once again in his human form. "Atlantis is quiet for now but if Seers can destroy Champions and are allowed to do so I doubt I could live peacefully much longer. It will be quite a story to tell too I should suppose."

"I am coming too I hope?" Atemu quirked. "I would not miss this for all the world."

"Of course," Atreyu soothed, "you'll be right there beside me if you like. I'm more concerned with whom else if coming to join us?"

"Nephele and Drea assured me they would be along," Morphis promised. "Jenzar has been their father as many times as he's been mine after all. We may not be Champions or Faens but three more souls may help."

"I'm sure." Atreyu conceded. "I wish I didn't have to ask you to fight such a dangerous battle however."

"Never mind that," the Knight snorted, "I could not hold back Drea if I tried and Nephele will never listen to reason however old we get."

"Whom else?" Amar prodded. "My Faen Denn-Elec would have joined us but we still don't have permission to break protocol and let the Faens have contact."

"All for the best," attending Faen murmured. "If the Seers capture me it will be a disaster. If they were to catch myself, Denn-Elec and Vegas Earth's Veil would be helpless."

"Never mind," Seviticus mused, "there are at least ten strapping general Reapers dying to accompany us. Atemu and Morphis make two Specialists while your kin add two more soul types. We have a Watcher and a Guardian Watcher. Not to mention two Champions now and a Faen last but not least. That is an imposing force if ever I heard of one."

"What about our Ferryman?" Atemu suggested of Atreyu.

"I couldn't ask him to." He sighed. "Akefia keeps him busy enough and he is hardly a combat ready soldier."

"Anyone else who would not raise their hand to save Jenzar is a coward clothed as a Reaper," Morphis rued, "it's only dutiful."

"You can't blame them for being afraid," Atreyu reminded, "the Seers have caught a Champion. They are our greatest warriors. To think they are so powerful is terrifying for less armed souls. You can't fault them for their survival instinct."

"I know," the Knight grumbled, "but I would be ashamed of myself if I did not step in to help free Jenzar Fraveous."

"Yes, but he's your father." The Faen smiled. "It's a different matter to ask family, close kin, to help."

"You're right," Amar swore very softly, tilting his face down to Atreyu's as if he might peck the Faen's forehead lovingly with his lips. "We would never abandon the two of you in your hour of need. I know you and Jenzar would lead the volley to save me and you two are far too beloved to have no supporters even against certain defeat. We will rescue him and then, one day, you, he, I and Denn shall return home happily enough."

"I'll finally get that rematch when there's time for such things." Atreyu giggled. "You still owe me after that game you cheated."

"Cheat?" Amar snorted. "Why I did no such thing."

"So you'd have me believe." He snorted.

"So you should believe me."

It was pleasant to see this family, Jenzar's family, accumulated to fight for his freedom. Atemu could only hope that somewhere he had allies he was yet to remember who would be so eager to run after him. Yet, equally significant, was that after four billion years there were not hundreds here to face an unknown and imposing threat for Jenzar. Still Atemu supposed there were many types of souls who did not remember from one lifetime to another and were not meant to. There were probably millions who could not know that Jenzar was in danger, remember him, be here to fight or who had the means to fight this kind of battle.

"Excuse me?"

They twitched all of the present seventeen of them, great or small, to the wayward Reaper standing nervously straight backed as he crept into the courtyard. He was younger than Atemu and as sparsely armed as the other general Reapers. He did not waft power like Amar, Timaeus or Atreyu but he seeped with a will and determination far beyond the obvious lack of power he seemed to carry on his shoulders.

"This is the force that will save the Champion?" He supposed.

"Aye," Atreyu murmured, but wouldn't press. The young Reaper seemed to want to force himself to ask something without any aid or prompt.

"May I join you?"

"Of course brother." Amar nodded. "Who are you?"

"Yusei Fudomakari," he answered bold but tense, "I'm a Specialist. I believe. I don't remember what type yet."

"Have you hunted long brother?" Amar strung cautiously, curious of something, and colouring Yusei's fingers clenched as he turned his eyes to his boots.

"My first phase in was a month ago." He confessed carefully. "I'm not sure yet if this is all real but if it is I couldn't forgive myself if I didn't help those who asked for it. I want to be the best I can, do the best I can, I want to do something worthwhile. I can understand if you might think me a burden however."

"No," Atreyu cut stubbornly, a knowingly warm smile tingling across his features. "I would not imagine going into battle without a man like you Fudomakari. You are welcome with me. You are just the type. Please say you'll stay?"

Atemu saw it in the young man's startled eyes as Atreyu gave plead for his assistance. He saw the sudden rush of amazement, the uncertain adoration and bamboozled wonderment the Faen inspired. This boy had been vouched for by the Faen, Atreyu had some instant faith in this child which the rest of them would immediately respect as they respected Atreyu and Yusei seemed to appreciate that at least briefly and gratefully.

"I will do anything you ask." He swore passionately. "But…" he stumbled gruffly embarrassed, "who are you? Are you what they call a Faen?"

"Aye," Atreyu glimmered brightly, sparkling through his eyes and his smile. "I am Atreyu Damestaire and it is my pleasure to meet you Yusei Fudomakari."

"The pleasure is all mine Atreyu Damestaire." He was as sincere as any other.

Atemu considered, briefly, that if Yusei was so bold here, so determined, to do the worthwhile then what kind of herculean was he in the Natural World? What man, woman or child hid his soul? How courageous was he when he was awake? Atemu couldn't be sure but, like Atreyu seemed to see, he saw the potential burning there with brilliance. This boy would be one to watch and, ever nostalgic, Atemu envied his self-awareness. Yusei was almost sure, after a month, this was real and had Atreyu met him first who would the Faen had aligned with more? It was a harmless thought. Atemu had made his mark but Yusei would have been quite a challenger had he arrived only a little bit sooner to this game.

"Then that makes twenty of us," Atreyu smiled, "all to bring one spoilt Champion home. I think it will be more than enough for a few hundred Seers. Shall we begin training?"

"We have a lot of preparation to undertake." Seviticus agreed.

"Well then," Atreyu smirked, "Cobalt with Timaeus. You'll need all the help you can get. Seviticus if you would help me assist our ten general Reapers. Amar take our Specialists. That includes you Atemu and you Yusei even if neither of you can remember."

Yusei baulked, trying to lessen the appearance of his reaction upon his features and failing as Atemu winked sympathetically to him with a nonchalant roll of their shoulders. Atemu said, in not so many words: _what can you do? That's Atreyu for you. I understand how clueless you feel_.

Cobalt on the other hand did not seem at all pleased by Atreyu's little joke but would not argue. As for Morphis, Amar and Seviticus they were as prompt to work as one would expect after centuries of practice under Atreyu.

"Atemu Pheramora," he greeted seconds later when Yusei crept stiffly closer, thrusting his palm out.

"Yusei," he nodded, "are you the one who wrote those books on the planet called Earth?"

"Aye," Atemu sighed. "I'm quite a fool when I'm awake but I swear to you I'm much better in combat than I am at keeping my mouth shut."

"I'm sure." The boy nodded solemnly. He seemed so awed still by all of this. "Is Atreyu Damestaire always like that?"

"Always," he chuckled. "It's pleasant isn't it?"

"Aye," Yusei admitted quietly, eyes running distantly over the Faen. "They're more perplexingly astounding creatures than I imagined…"

"That one certainly," he concurred with understanding, "but he's taken a shine to you already."

"You think?" Yusei obviously suspected it but had muted his instinct apparently to shrug it off as egotism.

"Oh yes," Atemu chuckled, "I think he quite likes you if I know Atreyu."

"Do you?"

"I've been filling in for Jenzar Fraveous." He tried not to sound proud.

"What is he like?" The boy mused immediately and Atemu was assaulted again by the surreal-ness of it. Yusei seemed to assume he was some great talent.

"I don't know," Atemu dismissed gently, "we shall have to ask Morphis. I've heard however that he is a wonderfully talented Champion. Enviable."

"I can imagine." The boy nodded eyes roving back over Atreyu with the tiniest flicker of a smile. "He _must_ be."

* * *

"Who are you talking to?" Kaiba demanded as he slouched further into Yugi's man-of-the-house leather armchair. He had that same sour look upon his face he'd worn since arriving or, more accurately, since Yugi and Ryou had insisted upon background noise and pushed _Aladdin_ into the DVD player.

"No one," the Faen mumbled, pen clutched between his lips as he shuffled his Tarot cards with one hand and stacked his papers on the carpet with the other.

It was only the four of them tonight: Yami, Yugi, Kaiba and Ryou. Their haphazard little coven had been assembled at Yugi's house as part of the preparations for the upcoming siege upon Tartarus. As they prepared in the Supernatural Yugi was very consciously aware that there was the potential for Natural world fallout. The Faen seemed privy to the concept that, whether they succeeded or failed in rescuing Jenzar, as the Seers knew his location there was a chance they would chase them back to the Natural world after their siege and make an attempt on Yugi, Yami and their closest here in the waking world.

So they were here, at Yugi's, on an otherwise delightful Saturday night preparing themselves for the fallout. Ryou would not be coming with them to besiege Tartarus but the Ferryman could very well become a target as one of Yugi's allies and had eagerly submitted to helping them prepare for the worst of the storm.

Yami had been presented with a bucket of supplies and ordered to prep an assortment of Protection Boxes. Ryou was fabricating more anti-possession kits for them: magically embedded jewellery, rock salt pouches, silver and iron implements they could easy hide and carry. Yugi had taken up his cards and seemed to be gauging the current stage of the Veil around them: where the magic was, what was going on, and where they should be aware like a Mage casting runes to gauge the weather. Kaiba had arrived promptly and since arriving had consented to assisting in nothing and overseeing everyone.

With the heady musical running in the background, the snacks sprawled between them, and the ease of conversation Yami was quite contented with his lot in the world. This was peculiarly pleasant for him in the most absurd way and he could almost forget they were prepping an arsenal for battle.

Yugi continued taking notes, murmuring like a mystic under his breath and spreading the cards for responses.

"You're talking to someone," Kaiba insisted irritably, as nosy as he ever had been.

"I'm just directing my magic," Yugi answered vaguely. "I'm trying to plot the Veil, get us more info to go off of and scout into Tartarus without puncturing into it. I'm not talking to anyone yet Seto. I'll tell you when I start chatting, alright? My nosy busy-bodied Watcher."

"I get to pick the next movie." Kaiba ordered.

"If you're bored then help Yami." The Faen ordered equal parts fearless but dismissive like a distracted parent fixing the accounts as they spoke down to a belligerent child.

"I'm not that bored," the brunette scoffed, planting his feet on the coffee table just by Yami rudely. "He's doing fine."

"_Thanks_." The Reaper snorted dryly.

"Argh," Yugi mumbled as he gathered up another array of cards, "fucking useless…"

"You okay?" Yami quirked up from his latest Protection Box.

"Are they being difficult?" Ryou added gently to Yugi. "Do you want me to try asking around?"

"Nah," Yugi sighed soothingly. "These cards are just driving me mad. I can't get info that's specific enough with them. The symbols are too heavy handed. I'm going to go grab my other deck. Anyone want anything?"

"No thanks Gorgeous," Ryou smiled.

"Yami you good?"

"Any malt-teasers left?" He prodded hopefully.

"I think we ate them all," Yugi sighed, tugging up his jeans as shoving the Tarot Cards back under the couch he rose to swagger into the hallway. Pausing he cast an easy smile over his shoulder. "I'll have a check."

"Thanks," the Reaper retorted mildly.

This was so easy to Yami. It felt natural, peacefully, as if he'd spent centuries doing this sort of nonsense into the night. It was just the proper mix of purposeful, like school exam prep, and whimsical frivolity to put he and Atemu at ease with mundane normalcy they could both recognise.

Yugi was back quickly. How he managed to be so briskly business like, focused, as he threw another packet of chocolate into Yami's hands and collapsed on the carpet with another deck of cards was a beautiful mystery. Yugi always seemed focused, always protective and thoughtful as if he never let his mind a moment's rest. It was something Yami had learnt to accept. That even when casual Yugi was diligent. Yami quite enjoyed it, this authoritative side of the Faen that seemed only right, because this was Yugi as he had come to know him. This was who Yugi was when he wasn't pretending from behind a wall to be flouncy, friendly and normal. Yugi, as he truly was, was a leader and if you didn't like it then you backed out of the way because that was simply the way things were.

After all, difficult as he was, Kaiba was here and Kaiba knew well enough not to argue with a working Faen.

"What are those ones?" Yami mumbled round a mouthful of chocolate as Yugi ran through the newest deck of cards and sorted them across the carpet in neat, careful but somehow holistic patterns.

"Duel Monsters cards," Yugi explained with a laugh.

"I had those in high school," the Reaper chuckled, "what are they good for?"

"They're just more specific," the Faen shrugged, "besides I've had them for yonks so they're saturated with my magic. Means I can be more precise with them, they're less unwieldy, I have more control over them."

Not for the first time Yugi spoke of them as if they had their own intrinsic life distinctly free of his will. As if everything in the world had its own presence and thoughts some of which were more appealing or difficult.

Yugi lay out a pyramid of cards from one pile: _Soul Release_ set at the top, the next two cards beneath it sat as _Blasting the Ruins_ and _Performance of the Sword_. Yugi was not shuffling the deck to pull this at random, no, rather he was purposefully setting them out as Yami watched curiously across the coffee table.

"Oh just go sit with him," Kaiba ordered, kicking his heel against Yami's shoulder.

"Huh?" He grunted from his daze.

"You want to watch Yami?" Yugi supposed with a giggle, understanding, filial in the way he responded to the Reapers' naïve curiosity when Yami nodded and with a tilt of his head Yugi beckoned the man closer happily.

Invited to take a place beside him Yami curled his legs in tight so as not to nudge or disturb the cards Yugi was carefully laying out. He was trapped close to Yugi in their tiny patch of carpet between the furniture and murmuring Yugi gestured over the three cards he had laid.

"_Soul Release_ is our mission objective; find and free Jenzar." He explained. "The other two are how we're going to do that: _Blasting the Ruins_ means we storm the nest and _Performance of the Sword_ means we're going to work together to scour the place. I'm just setting out mission parameters in stone to make a compass so when I ask my other questions I'll get a more directed response. If I have to explain every time what I'm asking about it'll be a pain in the ass. This specifies the mission I'm asking about."

"Who are you asking?"

"No one technically," Yugi um-ed and ah-ed trying to explain, "I'm feeling out the Veil and what's going on along it with my magic. Make any sense? It's better than asking the Gate Keeper because he won't know everything. It's more like chemical testing with bits of magic."

"Okay," he nodded, "can I just watch? Maybe it'll make more sense if I can get a feel for it."

"Yeah sure," the smaller grinned eager to share with him. "Alright, so, what kind of crew have we got?"

Yugi murmured as if he wasn't quite sure. It wasn't as if Yugi didn't know exactly who they were taking into battle with them more, Yami surmised, the Faen was attempting to dissect more about the nature of their allies and what to expect from them in the actual battle.

Six cards hit the floor: _Magician of Faith, Summoned Skull, Spirit Caller_, _Scapegoat, Flame Champion _and _Dark Magician_. Resting his index finger on _Magician of Faith_ Yugi hummed a little and seemed to stare into space.

"Amar," he decided the card represented, frowning a little before adding: "and Sev. They really believe we're going to find Jenzar, they're going to put their all and they're totally dependable."

"How can you tell that?"

"Cause that's what the magic around the card feels like," Yugi answered moving to _Summoned Skull_, "Morphis, Drea and Nephele. Here because they feel they have to be, no resentment, steady hearts. Shouldn't fly off the handle and do something silly. Good. I don't want to be worrying about my babies in the middle of a fight, need to focus myself…"

Yami leant in closer as Yugi moved his finger over _Spirit Caller_.

"Cobalt and Kaiba," he rued, "Dartz wants to know everything but I think, even with his fingers in the pie, we can trust Timaeus to show his full strength willingly."

"Can I try?" Yami interrupted as Yugi wavered towards the next card.

The Faen blinked, laughing at his exuberance, and nodding wrapped his fingers round Yami's hand to bring the tip of the Reaper's finger over _Scapegoat_.

Yami frowned, tried extending himself into the card to feel something from behind it and mingling felt something.

"The General Reapers?" He supposed and smiling Yugi nodded. "It feels like… I don't know, like nothing special? Like they're fodder? Like they'll hold up but they're not going to do something spectacular?"

Yugi grinned, nodding, and nudging him glided Yami's finger across to the next card. _Flame Champion_ sat under Yami's finger and hesitant he tried to make sense of the feeling wafting up oddly between his imagination and his recognition.

"Yusei?" He guessed, drawn to the name by something unfathomable, by some hint in the sensation. "It feels like Yusei."

"Oh yeah," Yugi whispered, "that's Yusei's signature alright."

"_Flame Champion?_" Yami blinked confused.

"Feels special doesn't it?" The Faen smiled.

"What do you know that I don't?" He supposed.

"Feel it." Yugi ordered teasingly. "It's Yusei but what does he feel like? What's that card telling you?"

"It feels like…" He frowned. "Like…Amar and Sev kind of…like…Is? Is Yusei a _Champion?_"

Yami baulked like it was a bit of particularly fascinating gossip on the school yard and beaming conspiratorially Yugi nodded furiously by his shoulder.

"He doesn't know," the Faen grinned, "but I'm _sure_ he is. I remember him. He's so close to remembering too. He's not on Earth, obviously, because we already have all our Faens and Champions but he's on a planet nearby and I'm sure he must've just recently been reborn. He's probably a teenager, just looking for his Faen, just waking up."

"My God," Yami laughed brightly, it felt right somehow. "That's wonderful. It makes so much sense, seems right somehow. So that's what a baby Champion looks like?"

"Yep," Yugi cooed. "That's why he's drawn to me and to kicking big ass. He's just about to remember his own Faen, just missing them, and wanting them."

"God," he smiled, acutely jealous but his inner big brother was pleased for Yusei. It seemed like the natural order to him. Yusei would be a good Champion, a good lover to some beautiful young Faen somewhere and Yusei would probably soon be stronger and more talented than Yami ever would be yet that didn't entirely bother him.

"Do the last one," Yugi ordered, directing Yami's finger over the _Dark Magician_.

"That was my favourite card when I was seventeen," he smiled with nostalgia before bothering to reflect upon the energy in the card. "Feels like…it feels like me!"

"No surprise." The Faen grinned. "What's it feel like to you that you're going to do?"

Yami smiled, digging his energy into the card and smiling he leant into Yugi.

"Brave, like a dull fool, like I'm going to stick to you and not peel off your side for a second."

"I expected," Yugi grinned, letting Yami peck a kiss to his cheek bone harmlessly. "I think you're going to follow me right into the heart of the nest no matter what I order you to do. I don't know how well that's going to work for you but we'll see. Least we know what to expect of everyone. Not that it was any great surprise thank God."

"Good to know we can depend on everyone."

"A good crew is half the battle," Yugi nodded. "Now we just have to deal with the stuff we can't depend on."

* * *

"Atreyu!" Atemu caught himself as he phased in to the Hive for the second night, in so many, of training before their eventual siege. "Oh… my apologies…"

The being who had been waiting for him was not Atreyu but Atemu could forgive himself for assuming as much given the nature of the body and the shape of the face. They were a strange approximation of Atreyu perhaps similar but far too sharp, too sensual when they moved towards him and Atemu was immediately reminded of sharks in the water.

"Never fret," the young man greeted? Male or female seemed ubiquitous terms to apply to this creature that straddled the divide as well as Atreyu did. _He_seemed fractionally more appropriate however as the ponderously sensual creature came within his personal space and settled its arms round his shoulders. "You must be Trey's bodyguard."

"Aye," he answered carefully hands pinned to his side by his own indecision of where to lay them as the other leant into one hip languidly. "I am Atemu Pheramora."

"Drea Dyzeraseras." The other purred round the mouthful. The sounds were almost Arabic.

"You…" Atemu paused as Drea seemed to lean a little closer, head tilting as the Reaper attempted to speak. "You are one of Atreyu and Jenzar's children?"

"I have been, often," Drea nodded slowly.

"You're a Reaper then? Like Morphis?"

"Big brother Morphis Horus," Drea chuckled, "no. No, Nephele and I aren't Reapers like Jenzar or Morphis and we aren't Faens either. I'm a Sequester."

"Sequester?" Atemu frowned. "I haven't heard of them."

"You aren't meant to." Drea grinned. "We answer to Supervisor Ammit. We're a tight knit little bunch. If you don't hear about us then it means everything is going just as it should. Sequesters," he elaborated running one hand down Atemu's chest in fascination as the Reaper was held frozen by his presence, "make sure that secrecy is maintained. If someone knows something they shouldn't or tells others, if someone puts a wrench in the cogs, then we get rid of them."

"I see." He nodded tightly. "I don't suppose you've heard of me then?"

"Oh, very much." Drea assured him. "Ammit and the Gate Keeper discussed it very heatedly, after you wrote those books, if someone like myself should have been called in to hurry the process of your next reincarnation along. Especially considering how you endangered my Mother."

"I am very sorry for the worry I must've caused you, Morphis and Nephele."

"Don't apologise," the smaller hushed sweetly, the nail of his index finger running over Atemu's lip. "It's been the most fun I've had in _ages_. As the middle child in our little family I'm something of a trouble maker." His hands ran down Atemu's biceps firmly. "So I find people like you very amusing especially when they stir up Atreyu."

"Is he here yet?" Atemu coughed colouring. "Perhaps we best proceed to training with the others."

"In a second," Drea shushed. "I wanted to let you know that once we reclaim Jenzar you ought to consider coming along with me for a while."

"Why is that?"

"We'll have plenty in common." The young man smirked. "After all not many souls have the guts to look at Atreyu like you do or at Jenzar like _I _have…"

"I…I see." Atemu relented stiffly. This boy with his slick black combat suit and his dark, chocolaty, eyes set in that deceivingly sweetly mapped out face with all its wafts of gently curling hair frightened him. He burned with a dark intensity, a threatening gait, predatorial even petite as he was leaning into Atemu like a lover.

"Just think about it." Drea smirked patting Atemu's cheek with the tips of his fingers almost condescendingly. "Now, we best go make our appearance in the training arena or sour uncle Amar will think I'm up to something and poor baby Nephele will sulk that I've been keeping you from an introduction to him. Lovely meeting you Atemu Pheramora."

Drea sauntered, there was no better word for it, and the coldness in Atemu's gut soured oddly to a lusty heat at the sexual toss of that hair as Drea lead the way to where their party was amassed to continue the preparations tonight. Until now Atemu had only meet Morphis, the first soul Atreyu and Jenzar provided a mortal body for and had since parented frequently. Meeting Drea gave him a darker picture of the trio of souls Jenzar and Atreyu supposedly parented frequently and often at once. It was peculiar to see how, between immortals, a connection could be forged of a parental nature even when none were older than each other simply by how they were often related in the Natural World.

If Morphis was such a gentleman, Drea the 'slut' he supposed rudely and inappropriately driven by the tempting twist of those hips, then Nephele the baby…?

In the training arena the general Reapers had taken to fighting, practicing, amongst themselves half watching from the corners of their rings as the more powerful players challenged each other to practice matches. Cobalt was struggling, sour faced, under Timaeus' diligent instruction. Morphis and Yusei seemed locked in a well matched brawl under Seviticus' supervision but, both gentlemen, neither seemed keen to lodge a hit against the other. Amar and Atreyu too were locked in combat, stupendously at that, flinging magic across the arena, rumbling the others, and laughing.

"There you are!" A pretty little thing, light haired and bright eyed, spat impatiently toward Drea as he lead them round the edge of the arena. "You took quite a long time big sibling mine. Not threatening are we?"

"_Me?_" Drea remarked, dramatically horrified, as he gestured over himself with a little scoff. "_Never _baby Nephele. Daddy taught me better than that."

"Daddy certainly tried," the other sighed, arms folded hesitantly as the elder drifted past to plant a teasing kiss along Nephele's cheek bone which seemed to off-put and sour the other and bud to bloom another smile across Drea's knowing face.

The Sequester slipped round Atreyu and Amar, lodged in combat, and briskly prancing behind Seviticus made a motion Atemu almost missed even transfixed upon Drea as he was. A shot of energy lapped out of Drea, spike like, and sailing past a startled Seviticus knocked Morphis plain off his feet as he played at chivalry with Yusei. Yusei rounded, bemused, and darting under Seviticus' arm Drea jumped into battle to tackle the unsuspecting Reaper Specialist against the earth.

"Come on!" He teased. "Let's have a proper battle you two!"

"Heh," Nephele sighed beside Atemu, "that's Drea for you."

"He's unique," Atemu mumbled, "not at all what I expected. It's a pleasure to meet you however I'm sure."

"Pleasure indeed," Nephele laughed softly, taking Atemu's hand in his as he finally disentangled his disapproving stare from the proceedings of the now invigorated training battle. "Nephele Austriamehre."

"Another of Atreyu and Jenzar's children," Atemu nodded, squeezing the soft hands. "Atemu Pheramora I suppose you know."

"Of course," he shrugged sympathetically over Atemu, "Reaper?"

"Aye, you?"

"Timer," Nephele explained, "I answer to Supervisor Chronos. I make sure the time stream functions properly and that people aren't playing around with it in ways they shouldn't be. It's a fairly delicate creature."

"Essential though," he nodded. "That must be fascinating work."

"Oh yes," the young one nodded, "it frequently traps me on the far edges of the universe where the time stream most often frays which is a shame…"

"Hmm?" Atemu murmured. Nephele's hands had slipped kindly from his and refolded against the other's chest as he glanced over the battle Drea had begun. It wasn't going well. Morphis had been bound on his stomach, Drea's foot in the small of his back as the wiry little creature held Yusei aloft with one hand. At least Drea seemed to be enjoying himself.

"Nothing," Nephele dismissed trying to be merry, "Morphis just…I feel better knowing we're reincarnated close together. He's so hopeless. I don't know why he's always born first. Being the oldest doesn't suit him."

"I'm sure he manages." Atemu sympathised. "You're close?"

"Ah…" Nephele laughed, nearly colouring, "some lifetimes. Others he focuses his efforts on taming Drea but he never quite succeeds."

"So you move together?"

"We try to," he admitted. "The three of us always seem to end up nearby but unlike Atreyu and Jenzar there's never any guarantee we will be reincarnated together."

"A shame," Atemu rued that perhaps this was what he had to look forward to; a tenuous promise of meeting his dear friends perhaps every few life times or millenniums but always holding the memories to remember them.

"Aye," Nephele sighed, and seeming to gather himself smirked. "If you don't mind Atemu can we talk more later?"

"Oh, of course," he fumbled.

"Thank you," Nephele grinned and digging his feet in pushed off the earth. The boy bounced a good twenty feet, sailing into the air, and heavily came crashing down on a shrieking Drea. The pair of them squabbled, grabbing and hissing at each other as they rolled across the earth locked together magic flaring.

Lightning crackled, Nephele flew across the arena over the General Reapers who scrambled and hitting the far wall the Timer was slow to stagger back onto his feet.

"Ha!" Drea grinned hands resting firmly on his hips as their increasing audience rallied. "What's wrong Baby? Was I too rough on you?"

"_BURN THE WITCH!_" Nephele spat and grunting Drea threw his arms up at the assaulting wave of energy lashing back towards him.

"_REFLECT!_"

"You two," Seviticus grumbled impatiently, "enough! This is a training exercise. Air your grievances elsewhere."

"Neph, Dree!" Morphis attempted good humouredly. "Don't you think that's quite-"

"_RESTRICT!_" Drea ordered silencing the Knight painfully as Morphis, coughing, clamped in on himself.

"_SNARE!_" Nephele shot back instinctively and driving Drea against the opposing wall held the Sequester there with tendril of magic. "Don't bring Morph into this!"

"We always bring Morph into this!" Drea spat. "_RELINQUISH!_ _CRUSH!_"

Atemu felt the general Reapers, startled, clustered behind he and Yusei for cover. Seviticus swore but seemed to not want to move in-between the brawlers and had turned his attention to freeing Morphis or else removing him from the line of fire.

"_DEESCALATE DELINQUENTS! RELINQUISH ARMS!_"

Drea froze, shaking in resistance, and equally disposed Nephele struggled immobilized. Atemu cast his eyes back and, sure enough, removed from his fight with Amar the Faen had stepped in one hand raised the other coming to rest on Atemu's elbow.

"You don't have to come with me." Atreyu warned the pair of them, hand poised, as he kept them tightly under wraps. "If you can't look after each other I'm not taking you into a nest to watch you get hurt. Do you have any idea how disappointed Jenzar would be with this _nonsense?_"

"Oh like Father cares!" Drea hissed. "He's got short range vision. He'll dote on us."

"Go back to Ammit Drea." Atreyu ordered. "I'm not having you embarrass me by airing our private turmoils. If you don't possess enough compassion in your heart to fight with your kin selflessly I don't see the point of you being here. The same goes for you Nephele. This is belligerent and pointless. You are not children. You can control yourselves better than this or at least I had hoped."

"Pft," the Sequester snorted. "Never be as perfect as you Atreyu."

"I'm sorry." Nephele sighed tightly as the first to relent. "I want to help find Jenzar. I want to bring him home. I miss him."

"I know sweetheart," Atreyu overruled losing his control on the Timer who breathed easier instantly, "and you Drea? Are you staying or going?"

"I'll stay." He spat unhappily. "I'll even be nice. I want to see my Father again."

"I'm glad," the Faen soothed, releasing the Sequester slowly, cautiously, as he lowered his arm.  
"Now I think the three of us ought to train. Amar maybe you should take over Atemu, Yusei and Morphis for a while. Seviticus can you check on our Reaper friends?"

* * *

1 Morphis, Nephele, Amar, Denn-Elec, Seviticus and Vegas all have YGO character counterparts unfortunately it's going to be a few chapters until I can introduce them to you but I look forward to all your guesses.

2 Shout out to the lovely Pika who is once again fantastic and has done a gorgeous fan art for the last chapter (which may be up somewhere for you guys to see? I would post it but as Pika92 is the fabulous artist obviously I don't want to intrude). Also a shout out to Shmeepeh who's riding the same boat as I am at the moment~

3 I think by the end of Act 3 some of you will love Drea and some of you will hate him.

4 Lots more Yugi/Yami next chapter.

For Reference:  
_Jenzar's Rescue Party Breakdown_

10 General/Standard unnamed Reapers  
2 Champion Reapers- Amar Seirramoura (Faen Denn-Elec Flenrous) and Seviticus Prodius (Faen Vegas Helldreem)  
2 Specialist Unknown Reapers- Yusei Fudomakari (aka Yusei Fudo but not reincarnated on Earth) and Atemu Pheramora (aka Yami~)

Guardian Watcher- answers to Leviathan and Dartz- Timaeus  
Standard Watcher- answers to Leviathan and Dartz- Cobalt (aka Kaiba)

Reaper Knight- answers to Gate Keeper- eldest child of Jenz/Trey Morphis Horus  
Timer- answers to Chronos-youngest child of Jenz/Trey- Nephele Austriamehre  
Sequester- answers to Ammit- middle child of Jenz/Trey- Drea Dyzeraseras (not reincarnated on Earth)

Faen- answers to Third Star- Atreyu Damestaire (aka Yugi)


	15. Formulating Finales

Hey kiddos! So much this chapter… Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 15:_ Formulating Finales_

"Shall we gentlemen?" Amar inducted throwing his arm conspiratorially round Yusei's shoulder. It was purposeful Atemu was sure. Morphis was dreadfully comfortable with Amar, as was Atemu by now given the Champion's long standing kindness, but still a little stiff with his own newness Yusei needed a little more fostering to feel wanted. Atemu remembered feeling like such an odd end in this world.

"Indeed!" Atemu quirked, "it would be an honour to train with you. Morphis and Yusei I'd ask you to go hard on me. I'm far too behind in my training. How shall we do this?"

"That's our Atemu," the redhead chuckled, "always full of spirit. Now considering how shy you are about duelling with your allies Morphis I purpose this solution: I'm going to turn my spells on the three of you. The object is to work together and disarm me, if you can, while the others fight around us. You will feel the backlash and rumble of their battles but you must not let yourselves get distracted nor must you allow yourself to be thrown off by falling into someone else's battle."

"Right!" Yusei was expectantly keen, brittle with that fierce determination.

"Morph you're the most experienced and the most powerful right now," Amar reminded unhanding Yusei to step back and place some space between the three of them, "better take charge."

"Oh don't stay that!" The Knight withered. "I'm dreadful at this sort of thing!"

"Follow Atemu's lead then!" The Champion laughed, raising his arms, "three, two…"

"Me?" He baulked glancing between the Specialists. "Oh no-"

"_SEISMIC RUPTURE!_"

The three of them scrambled as Amar ripped up the earth between them. Yusei ducked, Atemu darted, but quicker on his feet Morphis was the only one of them who seemed to escape without being hit but a flying clump of stone or soil.

"_DEFEND!_" Yusei cried, drawing up a wall of sheer stone and skidding behind it Atemu fumbled for breath. "Atemu, what do we do?"

He was so strict, grabbing Morphis by the collar and hauling him in closer as the Knight slipped in beside them, that Atemu hardly knew what to say to the younger Reaper.

"Uh…" He floundered briskly. "Morph is quick. He distracts we take the back?"

"Good," Yusei commanded, "go!"

And with that, plan decided on the fly, the youngest Reaper took charge and hiking up his leg kicked a panicking Morphis out from behind their defence as they regrouped and Amar flung a battery of attacks against the surface. Atemu laughed, in awe of Yusei and thrilled with this turn crouched with him as they waited for Morphis to lead Amar off momentarily.

The Champion was stationary Atemu noted ducking his head round the corner. Holding his position steady and giving them what was probably a fairly sympathetic chance at victory by being careful but bland with his attacks. The Champion was giving them his least imposing attention for now but Atemu was sure he would adjust when having sussed out their abilities Amar found a more appropriate level to assault them.

For a soft spoken Reaper Morphis was quite skilled at dodging and when he hit the ground running, fell into the rhythm, Atemu could spot the experienced focus creeping across his features. Grinning Atemu garnered his own well-worn courage and nodding to Yusei threw himself back out with his arms extended.

"_WHIPLASH!_"

"_TUMBLE!_"

Yusei was not the sort to take the back seat and let them do all the work apparently. Atemu found he couldn't make a move without Yusei either clinging to his side or sprinting ahead.

They drove the Champion in, corralled him against a wall, but Atemu was convinced by the easy smile upon Amar's face that the Champion was playing with them and that batting away their attacks was a matter of reasonable ease. What would it be like, Yami wondered, to see Amar and Seviticus in full combat?

Amar diverted them but an understanding of each other's movements was developing and ignoring the barrage of attacks fostered around them Yusei, Atemu and Morphis drove in together for a triple assault. They would have, most likely, made some kind of impact but all at once the entire nature of the arena altered.

The sky blossomed to a soft baby blue overhead, the never ending sun obscured, and awed the three of them were thrown to silence as lush grass emerged into being under foot heavy with daffodils. Atemu could just taste the scent of the seeds, the lavender, rustling in the wind at the back of his mouth. Not so far to their right in this emergent field a glass dome had struck up and lightning crackled within it viciously as Atreyu, Nephele and Drea did battle.

"_UNDERTOE!_"

Yusei, Atemu and Morphis shrieked slapped off their feet into a puppy like heap amassed in the grass. Painfully thrown over each other they slumped, defeated, Amar regarding them with a sympathetic chuckle.

"I warned you not to get distracted." He teased resting his broad palms against his hips appraisingly. "This is an illusion Atreyu must've created. You'll need to hold your focus better in battle but you were doing well. Shall we try again?"

"Atreyu made this?" Yusei mumbled.

"It's amazing what Faens can do," Morphis laughed, finding his feet to offer his hands to Atemu and Yusei. "My sincere apologies for falling on you."

* * *

"The kids always like that?" Yami chuckled.

"Don't even get me started. Drea will be the death of me. He and Nephele are such Daddy's boys they never listen to me." Yugi groaned over the stove. "You guys looked like you were having fun with Amar though?"

"It was awesome. Yusei's an incredibly fast learner and Morph is pretty cluey too if he can just keep his focus."

"Oh Morph," he giggled. "He's hopeless isn't he?"

"He's not that bad," Yami snorted, "he's is a spaz though."

Yugi cackled. The Faen had decided Yami needed an early morning today for whatever reason had stirred Atreyu Damestaire at six or seven on a Saturday. It seemed ungodly to Yami after another long night of training. Yami truly didn't feel like he'd gotten any rest even after sleeping. Using so much magic must've been draining upon his physical body by extension. It didn't hassle him really, as panicked as he knew he should be he and Atemu were fairly soothed by the nature of their reality.

They would face the Seers as prepared as they could be. Their coalition would give it's all and what would happen would happen one way or another. It was fairly out of their hands but all things considered Yami had no interest in staying at home during this fight. He would stick with Yugi, with Atreyu, till the bittersweet end. He would make sure that if nothing else he could proudly return the Faen to his rightful Champion and say: _I did a damn good job protecting him. I was there through all of it and I gave everything I had_.

"Couldn't you sleep?" Yami guessed gently.

It was reasonable. Some realization or feeling had driven Yugi to raise so early a wander through Yami's front door this Saturday morning. Yami had awoken to Yugi ringing his doorbell, in an embarrassingly sweat soaked pair of PJ pants, and been ordered to sit at the kitchen counter and let the Faen whip up a batch of pancakes. He supposed it was Carolyn Smith, Yugi's inner fifties housewife, that came through in these little gestures or maybe it was just that being his most recent lifetime she had left an effect on his mannerism.

"Not really," Yugi sighed ladling the mixture into the pan as the butter sizzled, "I haven't been sleeping very well in general since we got permission to storm the nest."

"How come?" Yami prodded, chin in hand. "Are you scared?"

"A little," it was surprising that Yugi would admit as much. "I worry that I won't wake up. What if Jenzar isn't there? What if someone I love gets hurt? What about the kids? I keep wanting to scream out and ask to go alone. If something happens to any of the guys I don't know what I'd do. It would be my fault."

"We'll be fine," the Reaper insisted stubbornly and pushing out from the counter made his way round the island to throw his arms round Yugi and squeeze him close. The Faen felt plush with new morning sleepiness and smelling of cotton, fresh and soft, Yami could have kissed him but would rather had done anything to comfort him. "I'll be there. I won't let anything happen."

It was a lie really. Atemu could hardly do much given his weaknesses but Yami would do his best regardless. Being reincarnated because of some disaster during a Seer rumble didn't sound like a bad way to go really. It may have filled him with cold, dreadful, anxiety to contemplate his own death but in a way he was almost ready to face that inevitability.

"We're all pretty good at taking care of ourselves too," he assured further, "everyone we're taking with us is fairly clued in on not getting their asses kicked."

"I just…" Yugi heaved in his arms, throat clogged, flipping the pancake and stealing another moment by doing so twisting round a little to try again. "I…"

"What?" He pried, stomach dropping.

"We're going tonight." Yugi swallowed tightly gazing into Yami's clavicle rather than his face. "I can't put off missions much longer and…yeah…"

Yugi's fingers curled into the waist of his pants but would've grasped his shirt if he'd been wearing one and jerky as the Faen was Yami felt there was more left to say. How he replied was dependent upon what was left unspoken because for that moment Yami was too heavily submerged under the reality that he might not wake up tomorrow morning.

"If anything happens to me I want you to leave," Yugi ordered. "You're in charge of the coven here. Ryou's too unstable and Kaiba's too stable and…I want to be with you today."

"Shouldn't we prep or something?" He supposed wary but hoarse with dislike for the idea.

"It's just…if we find Jenzar then today's your last day as my Reaper." Yugi admitted miserably. "I'm going to miss it… I'd…I'd rather be here with you today than panicking at home."

Yami moaned through his nostrils and tangling his arms squeezed the fairy close. Thrown together Yugi's arms looped round his chest and burying his face in the other's clavicle the Faen let the Reaper rock them a little.

"We should do something special," Yami snorted weakly, digging his nose into Yugi's hair. He might lose this smell, be unable to map out his body, very soon.

"I know," Yugi croaked, and it took Yami a second to realize that, hiccupping, the Faen was on the precipice of crying. "But I can't think of anything good enough and stuff's closed today and…I don't know…"

"_Shh_," he preened gently, hand cradling the Faen's skull as Yugi sniffed against him. "It's okay."

"I don't want to ruin today," the Faen fussed, fingers grabbing for his bare shoulder blades round Yami's chest. "I know it's stupid. I want Jenz home but I don't want to give you back. I'm retarded."

"No, you're not," Yami chuckled.

It was surreal to Yami. He may as well have been right back at his laptop, staring down the screen, capping off the last page he would ever write of the _Trance_ saga and apologising, farewelling, Atreyu and Atemu. Now Atreyu was in his arms, tangible, like Yami had plucked him into existence through sheer will power and he couldn't contemplate letting this end. His mind wasn't ready yet to submit this reality and go back to normal. He couldn't let go of these characters and this world for fear he might break his own heart. Then again every story had to end sometime.

"I want to kiss you," Yugi confessed, batting at his eyes with the heel of his stubborn palm, "but I know it'll just screw things up."

"I want to kiss you every second," Yami admitted unhelpfully, "but I won't okay? I don't want you thinking about it when Jenz gets back. I do adore you though, alright?"

"I know," he murmured, turning back to kill the heat on the stove. It was so Yugi somehow to refuse himself the right to cry and then at once be back on top of the practicalities, to move on, a human being stealing_ Mills and Boons _moments between segments life. "Stay here, I just want to go grab my bag."

"Yeah sure," the author released him, turning the pancake out on the plate leaving it forgotten. Neither of them felt much like eating he guessed and really he felt awkward starting without Yugi. So this was why the Faen had rushed to him so early in the morning so he could steal every last second of being a team.

"Here," Yugi sauntered back in to rest one hand on the counter and reach out to Yami with the other, still sniffing as he attempted to secure his expression. "I didn't have much time to think about it or anything, just threw everything on there this morning and came over so its crapily edited."

"Wha?" Yami took the usb between his fingers dazed and fumbled. "Is this your stuff?"

"Copies," the Faen mumbled, tucking his hair back again. "Thought I'd get you a copy of all the shit I've written. It's about four hundred pages of nonsense and gibberish. I don't really like it but if you think I should do something with it I will."

"I get to look at all of it?" He baulked stumped eyes darting between Yugi and the thumb-stick.

"Yeah," Yugi diverted embarrassed, "let me know what you think later. Breakfast?"

"Fuck it," Yami snorted. "Let's have ice cream?"

"Yes," the smaller laughed despite himself as if Yami had just sprouted sheer genius. "Let's do that. I want juice too."

"We're ordering in tonight too." The author swore.

"Fuck yeah." Yugi answered stoutly packing the mix back in the fridge.

000

Nutrition was the last order of the day. Today was a day for stirring stomach pains and stoking sugary addictions and packing themselves full of energy to ward off tears. Yami could live with that. He could've sat with Yugi every Saturday morning cradling a tub of ice cream between them and tipping back orange juice in wine glasses. It was an eccentricity of Yugi's to refill their juice into such elegant glasses if only to stir something special in the atmosphere of the occasion. There was an exuberant luxury in ruining traditional formality and breaking out the glasses Yami wasn't sure he'd ever used.

He may as well have been sixteen. Yugi refused the movies in his collection and finding what the smaller dubbed the '_white trash channel_' they watched nonsense till noon when they switched to the crime, sci-fi and supernatural shows of the Fox-esque networks. Yugi had an inner lecturer trapped inside him. _Super Nanny_ turned into a parenting debate, _Terrible Bodies_ and _Wife Swap_ a cultural discussion with psychology text book quotes. The trivia information he could draw out of Yugi relatively easily was bizarre and fascinating the boy could always find some past nugget of info to link their current fascination too.

_Buffy the Vampire Slayer_ was giggled at, quoted, by the Faen with a loving nostalgia. _Supernatural_was flicked past not because Yugi dislike it, he insisted he loved it, but that:

"I can't bear season five," he whined into Yami, "I'm too emotionally attached to Sam and Dean. Watching them fight just makes me cringe."

_Charmed_ received a snub, a series of groans, because apparently it was so bad it hurt. The pair of them somehow powered into a discussion of how the self reflexivity of the humour within _Buffy_ not only made it seem less ridiculous but more realistic by acknowledging what of its concept was ridiculous. All while Yugi rather passionately dismissed the_ Charmed_ sisters as the _Bold and the Beautiful_ of supernatural TV.

"I love Dr Who," Yugi purred, settling down again as the theme song flared. "I'd have David Tennant babies."

Yami cackled.

_Star Gate Atlantis_ was apparently trash compared to the original. Yugi was also of the opinion that Captain Janeway of _Star Trek_ was far superior to both Picard and Kirk but Kirk was by far the most fun. Yami then received an interesting thesis about how Kirk's mission objective was not _'to boldly go where no man has gone before_' but to systematically punch the males of every species he encountered and sexually conquer their women like a space aged James Bond. Apparently James Bond was quite a feminist icon in the sixties before the nineties reversed the score, another trivia snippet of history and cultural perspective Yugi didn't realize he was rambling into.

Yami loved him like this. Loved Yugi pliant and rambling and lush with ideas, intelligence, honesty and creative eccentric humour that mishmashed eclectic tastes in a mental blender.

Apparently Yugi watched a great deal of British cooking shows, Yami discovered to his own amusement, and a great deal of UK docos at that. He drew out what he could, switched them to one of the movie channels and wavering between _Nightmare on Elm Street, Aliens,_ and _Halloween_ was ordered by Yugi's cooing, bouncing, eagerness to move instead to 512 where_ Paranormal Activity_ was playing.

"I fucking love this movie." Yugi purred. "It's scary accurate."

"You think?"

"Well, not _accurate_ accurate but it's like a training video." He elaborated eagerly. "It's just a perfect example-slash-summary of how people fuck themselves over when they play round with spirits. Every time I watch it it's a dissection of _What Not to Do in a Haunting 101_. If I ever wanted to give lessons I'd just throw this on and yell at the screen."

"Give me the whole layout," Yami ordered chuckling, "educate me."

"Oh god," the Faen cackled, "don't tell me that. I won't shut up."

"I've seen it before," he dismissed encouragingly, "rather hear you talk. Go on."

"I'm rambling, I eat conversations," Yugi snorted sympathetically.

* * *

Yami fell back into the old blue sofa, deeper and deeper as the reruns progressed, Yugi stuck snug between him and the backing of the couch and in the warmth of the afternoon sun he lulled sleepily. Yugi's hand on his chest, his arm round the Faen's body, Coco fat and heavy like a paperweight in his lap the discomfort and contentment nuzzled to weigh each other out.

He'd had girlfriends, boyfriends, and he didn't think of them distinctly by gender rather he thought of them by their names, their feelings, and their sensations. He didn't think about girls and boys. Yami thought of Anzu, Leon, Mana, and Mahado who hadn't felt like this.

Anzu when he'd been young, retarded and lusty filled with stupid urges had let him lather them in confusion and discomforting awkwardness till they sizzled to death. Leon had been too sweet for him, needy and nearly right but entrapping and cloying. Mana was another shade altogether the surfer girl, the bouncer, the flirty friend who couldn't quite transform them into Disney lovers but rather made Yami's queerness more starkly apparent. She'd been too much of a woman and he not enough of an ultra butch alpha male. She loved him, he loved her, but they were better listening to each other bitch. Finally he could count off Mahado most recently who might've been some escapist curiosity to reconnect with his long dead father. Mahado who had been so like him but too much so in that way till his loyalty, his protectiveness, made Yami feel less the man and more the child and they became too filial to be sexual.

It was shades of stumbling along in life that graced over his memory but evaporated now in the current. These were people he'd known and fallen out of touch with over the years. They were part of a boring slated history that seemed vague and not his own anymore. Anzu might be off in America like she'd dreamed or else hauled up playing Mummy by now after giving up. Mana still called, Leon sent Christmas cards, Mahad was an acquaintance who came to every birthday and asked about his mother but Yami could forget they all existed.

Yugi wasn't like that. Yugi gelled into him and Yami could imagine they'd done this every weekend for all their life. He could imagine them here at forty with kids sneaking out and then at eighty like biddies where this kind of cuddle stopped being romantic enough to put on a Hallmark card and started being geriatric. He could see the end of their time, their moment passed, but beyond that he could see how in another life they could last forever enfolded. He wanted that.

This grandeur of being a Reaper could all fall away and he would still want Yugi. The greatness he longed for, the adventure, was negated by the happiness and the perfection of how Yugi slipped and slotted into his world. That joy, this contentment, erased his longings for more till like a drugged bear he would have been satisfied to never be anything special in exchange for always being perfectly loved.

His romantic history vanished around Yugi. They were blank slates. Their worlds met and nestled up rightfully. They had an easy potential. Yugi pulled him in the right directions and Yami could feel with enough time to learn to coax him he could fill the voids Yugi yearned for. He could morph to fit Jenzar's spot, he could transform them, they could live together and love together and the rest would roll out like a movie as it should. Yugi would flash through university, Yami would publish, they'd travel to the same exotic places they both wanted to see with someone, they'd make love in hotel window seats and Yami would see Yugi's face light up when they found some ruin somewhere.

He could see that with his imagination. He could see his mother loving Yugi, thinking he was the perfect kind of boy if a bit too young for her son. He could see Yugi's Grandfather jabbering and slapping out old playing cards on a class counter in his store so Yami could play poker with him. He could imagine Yugi dragging him to face his father's history in Egypt and could imagine the pleasure that the ancient would wring out of the Faen. He could see Yugi tracing the walls, reading the Hieroglyphs and showing Yami in not so many words where he had lived in 48BC and 150BC and 1930AD…

At the same moment his mind split and Yami could comprehend an equally pleasant, if bittersweet, future where things would be less perfect but would nearly fit.

Jenzar would come back tonight and Yami would watch Yugi fall wildly in love tomorrow. They would be best friends, part of a coven, part of Yugi's tight knit family. Ignoring the minor practicalities Yami and Jenzar might take a liking to each other and flitter off to Las Vegas and laugh like he and Joey did. They'd come home and Yami and Yugi would live in separate homes, have Christmas parties together, call each other when they were sick and with a clicking tongue Yugi would urge him to better boyfriends and easy happiness.

Jenzar and Yugi would be the watermark of success, contentment, and Yami would never be able to properly hate either of them. Bakura and Ryou would be the pair their social group gossiped about. Joey and Seto would build something in their own funny way. They'd all watch Mokuba grow up as the faux extended family the boy needed and had to generate without enough blood to naturally possess one. Yami, in the end, would be the one who was lovely but never quite found his way to the perfect romance despite the love of the social circle who would form his lifelong friends.

In that continuity Yami would be a Reaper, get his memories one day, search out those people from his past with varying degrees of success and be reasonably mundane. Coaxing Yugi to talk about the Supernatural, he imagined, would be harder then. They'd play at being adults and talk about bills or mortgages or publishers. They'd meet in the Hive, depend on each other, and share tid-bits of advice like work colleges.

Yami wouldn't wake to Yugi's cooking, Yami wouldn't hold him every night, and Yami would never know how the tender skin behind Yugi's knee tasted.

That would be alright. They would be alright. By next lifetime this adoring love would have faded softly to filial devotion and it would never regenerate. This, today, what they almost had would end.

Yugi startled, jumping, as if that strange feeling of falling had come to him when his eyes were closed and panting pushed himself up a little.

"You okay?" Yami croaked.

"I almost fell asleep," Yugi whispered, seemingly afraid to slump back down but torn by the desire to remain close, "I don't want to fall asleep yet. If I do we'll have to go fight. I'm not ready."

"Hey," he muttered, taking Yugi by the biceps. "You're probably the only one who's ready to walk in there. You're who I'm putting my money on. I don't care how powerful Cassidia is I still haven't seen anything that's ever come close to knocking you off or slowing you down."

"I hate not knowing what to expect." He trembled. "I kind of hate time too. I just wish I could stay stuck sometimes."

"Can't," Yami sighed, turning playfully to suggest: "besides I thought you were going to wreck righteous vengeance on the Seers?"

"Oh I'm going to kill that bitch." Yugi promised. "I'm going to rip that place apart. I know that. Still doesn't mean we'll _win_. We still have no idea how they stopped Jenzar. It just means I'm going to take a whole lot of the fuckers down with me."

"Any ideas what they did to Jenzar yet?"

"A few," the Faen admitted, "but nothing solid. I'm still missing enough to go off. Doesn't matter. I'll find out tonight but first things' first I guess. Listen, Yami…"

"Yeah?" He replied trepidatiously.

"I'm going to use the Lance of Lazarus." The Faen explained drawing Yami's eye over the pendant the Reaper had avoided for so long. "I want you to use my Needle."

"The Veil's Needle?" Yami baulked. "That'd be a waste! I won't know what to do with it!"

"It's a reflection of my heart," Yugi elaborated, "it won't let anything happen to you. I won't need it tonight. I don't need to fix any tears I need an offensive weapon like the Lance. Besides that: you still don't have your core powers yet. Without them you've got about as much juice as a Reaper. You'll run out of power way too soon if we don't back you up somehow. You won't have stamina. The Needle's connected to my core, I have an endlessly regenerating supply of energy, if you use it then it'll keep you charged. I _want_you to use it."

"Are you sure?" He frowned.

"Very." The Faen insisted. "Without it you're not getting through the battle. So if you don't use the Needle I'm making you stay behind. Alright?"

"I'd follow you anyway." Yami snorted stubbornly. "You can say that but I'd find a way to follow all of you. You're not doing this without me."

"You're using the Needle." Yugi warned firmly. "If you don't I swear to God…. You won't be going on_ any_ Hunts for a while. I want you there, I want need you there, but you're not going all _Brave Heart _on my watch. So use the fucking Needle, okay?"

"Okay, okay," Yami sighed chuckling weakened at Yugi's frown. "I know. It's serious. I'll use it. Will you manage with the Lance?"

"Between it and my magic I'll be fine."

"But your magic will be supplying me as well," he warned, "can you keep both of us going?"

"I have more juice than I know what to do with." Yugi scoffed. "Trust me Yami. Giving both of us power? I'm not going to break a sweat."

"How do I use then Needle then?"

"Just don't think about it." Yugi shrugged. "It's like how the Lance reacts to me. If you just trust it and don't try and overthink it then it'll look after you all on its own. If you use it it'll be whatever you need it to be and it'll hit whatever you need it to hit and it'll come right back to you if you call it. It's practically alive."

"Okay," he considered, just like the gun then…

* * *

"Don't have anything planned for tomorrow do you?" Yugi nearly chuckled on the door step that evening reactant to turn home alone Yami was sure. "It's going to be a long night."

"No way," Yami heaved.

"Hit the hay early and Amar will grab us all up." The Faen muttered. "We'll have to leave quick before the youngsters get cold feet."

"Thank fuck its Sunday tomorrow." He chuckled morosely.

"The Day of our Lord," Yugi sighed vaguely superstitious, hands in his pockets through the chill of the breeze. As much as the Faen wanted to be Yami figured Yugi, from the dazed heavy look in his eyes, was more in his head than really with him today. Yugi's whole heart hadn't been in this afternoon as much as they may have longed for it to be. He couldn't seem to hold eye contact with Yami, to grab solid ground, when his head was buzzing so heartily with work to be done.

"I'll be there." Yami swore. "Don't leave without me."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Yugi smiled but something about the thought pained him and his eyelashes twitched, expression wavering in tense frustration. Yami knew that look, knew Yugi was biting back a tear, but wouldn't push afraid that would send the frazzled Faen into a defensive rally. "Bye Yami."

It was gruff at first then weaker, more sincere, than perhaps the Faen would've liked and making no promise to come back Yugi was very brisk in turning down the steps. Yami supposed he wanted to go before he made himself turn back, wanted to go home to his lonely house and his fears and make himself face them through the hesitation, the panic, with that bravery Yami envied.

"Bye Yugi," he wanted to cry too, it was instinctive. This was almost over. He could feel the sun setting, he could feel death in the darkened corners of his house lapping sharply at his heels, he could feel the weight and it took what he had left not to run after Yugi.

He wanted to jump a plane, naively, never fall asleep again and just leave. It was a stupidly human thought. Reapers couldn't run away. This danger was inside Yami's head, in his soul, and no matter what country or time zone he settled in Yami would have to face it sometime. He had to sleep. Thinking he could run away so easily was naïve. Thinking Yugi, with all his pride and his love, would run away was worse it was stupid.

Yugi was scared because he knew he would do this, he would fight tonight without anyone if he had to, and that was why death felt real and imposing to him. Yami was scarred of the choice but tangled by the Reaper's honour, gallantry, which told him he would bite the bullet. Atemu was worried, they both were, but real Reapers went. Real Reapers did their job. Real Reapers fought even against Seers who might be able to destroy immortal souls and break eternal vows.

* * *

Yami may as well have had a curfew but he lingered, pushing it, terrified to be left behind but unable to lay himself down. There was a bitter coldness in his stomach. What if the whole world was different tomorrow? Should he text his mother? Joey? Someone? Tell someone he loved them? No, maybe that was as bad as giving up or letting go. Irrational as it was Yami didn't want to admit he might be in danger. Not physical danger but real danger. Danger which threatened the soul.

He retrieved Yugi's usb from the kitchen island, propped his laptop on his thighs in bed and checking the clock every few seconds found the files.

It was definitely more than four hundred pages.

_YR 7, YR 8, YR 9, YR 10, YR 11, YR 12, UNI 1_…

Files, jumbles upon jumbles of them at that, from Yugi's first awakening at thirteen onward through his schooling career till the present. Yami had been right about one thing: the Faen was prolific.

He was tempted to go back to the beginning, before he knew Yugi, tempted to go back to when they met as Atemu and Trey but was sorely driven to the more recent past. To the inside of Yugi's brain now he might have an insight into if he scoured the most recent files. He hovered over _Uni 1 _and scrapping his restraint entered the folder. There must've been another ten files within it: _Malleus Malevolent, Book of Shadows YR 7, Memory Bin, Yami Sennen… _

He fought off his first instinct to enter his file first and dipped his toes in to scroll through the others. Yugi was organised.

The _Malleus Malevolent_ was a pun on the old witch hunters' manual from the 1600s and contained what seemed to be details of not only soul types but demons from Seers, Ghouls to otherwise. It was a menagerie, a glossary, an encyclopaedia of where Yugi had been and what he had fought and how he had fought it_. _

_Book of Shadows YR 7 _must've been another joke at the Neo Pagan belief that witches' should have personal coven spell books called 'Books of Shadows' and Yugi's was exactly that: how to's for everything from Protection Boxes to silver bullets.

_Memory Bin_ seemed to be pages upon pages, at least three hundred, of nearly complete prose which sometimes wandered off into other formats detailing what must've been Yugi's past lives. At times there seemed to be more than one author, at times voices broken through in different fonts sporadically and seemed to argue with each other.

_Yami Sennen_was, for the first thirty pages, fairly dissatisfying. Personal details, copies of interviews, copies of emails… everything Yugi had used to watch him, to find him and to torture him like some dreadful supernatural Private Investigator. Then he found notes:

_He kisses just right. He holds me right. He smells kind of like Morph. I think he's giving me brain damage. I haven't kissed someone for centuries. I shouldn't have kissed him. I liked it._

_I miss you Jenz. Fuck I miss you. Yami reminds me of how happy we were. I wish you were here. I wish I could apologise for whatever happened. I wish I could just kiss you. Really, truly, feel you again. I so sick of dreaming about you. I think… I think I'm losing myself, my true self… I can't reach that limit anymore and shine like I used too. Amar won't say it but I know it… I haven't been alone before, not since the first life, and then I didn't have a name. When I met you I didn't even have a sense of self. There isn't a me without you._

_I need you. I like him, a lot, but Yami's going to find someone. He belongs with a family somewhere like the one we built, the one I don't want to give up, and if he goes too I'm not going to cope. He's not mine though. He's not just a puppy I can take home. He's got his own life, his own destiny, and I'm stuck with mine. I've lost you and if I lose him too… I'm not that strong Jenz. I know I thought I was, I tried to be, but I'm not._

_Please come home. If I could just see you, if I could just know you were okay maybe I could be selfless enough to let you go. _

_If I tell Yami who I am he'll hate me… Do you hate me too somewhere? I don't blame you. I'm so selfish. I'm so stupidly stubborn. All those times I wouldn't let you help. I never wanted you to think I didn't need you Jenz… I just want to say sorry… Hurting Yami doesn't even help. He makes me too happy. _

_Am I even the same as the Atreyu you knew? Am I Atreyu Damestaire anymore or am I all Yugi? I can't tell, I can barely remember myself, and I'm so scared I'm going to forget your smile. I want to have a family with you again. I want those days, I want your songs, I want your smell and your hands and your stupid laugh. I want something to keep fighting for. Without good what am I doing? I'm selfish, fucking crazy and selfish. The Veil needs me, billions of people need me to keep fighting, but I just don't see the point if I'm alone. There's not joy in winning, in being the best, I'm not a soldier. _

_I'm starting to hate you a little. Almost. Maybe. I think. It's hard to decide. Yami makes it hard to think like myself. He's here with me and you're not. Even if he doesn't know who I am and even if he's a traitor. He's here and that's better than nothing. Have I sunk that low? I've never fallen in love like this before. It's strange to think of letting someone else into my heart when I'm so old and bitter. What a nasty thing to think in this nice young body eh? Please come home Jenzar. I love you so much. I've never stopped loving you. I don't think I can if I try even if I want to. _

The garden, that kiss, this almost love letter which sat nestled and forgotten in Yugi's ramblings must've been written sometime after that and before Yami discovered the truth. This was what he knew, in Yugi's own words, the Faen felt when unchecked and confessional to some distant ghost out of reach at the far end of the universe.

It took a moment to swallow it.

"We better go get him back," Yami snorted, softly assured, contented even he found himself smiling in a way that was resolved and fanciful.

It killed him but there was mild consolation. Whatever happened Jenzar would never have these memories which would be just his and Yugi's. In another four billion years Yugi would remember nearly falling in love with Yami. He could be content with that. Yugi would never forget kissing him and for a time that no one could ever steal from him Yami, Atemu, had been the one Yugi knew would come to save him.

"I'm waking up tomorrow." He told himself. "I'm bringing Jenzar home for you Yugi and no matter what I'll have loved you perfectly, or at least as well as I can, and done the best anyone could've."

Saying it aloud was like tying a knot, securing a vow, in a weird way.

He hoped Jenzar was as good as Yugi believed, worthy of all that love, because if he wasn't Yami might just have to start a war he'd probably lose. Jenzar would make Yugi, Atreyu, peaceful and what more could he want? Jenzar Fraveous had best appreciate it though, best adore his Faen, or Atemu promised they'd show him what a Specialist could do with the right motivation. Yami would probably never be as powerful as Jenzar but he felt, in his own naïve way he supposed, he'd loved Yugi just the same and he wouldn't be put off from fighting for Yugi's happiness.

"Let's go get em tiger." He laughed, half to himself or Atemu because really he couldn't find a line to draw the difference anymore. Either way as he clicked the laptop shut and kissed the usb that Yugi had entrusted to him with all its honesty he finally liked himself.

* * *

"Greetings Atemu," Amar grinned wary but conspiratorial as the Reaper enter their rally point. "Are you ready?"

"Always," he purred, "I haven't kept you all waiting have I?"

"No," the Champion sighed, "not at all. Drea's just phasing in now."

"He is the delinquent of the family," Atemu teased lightly, "but thankfully it means I'm not the last one here."

"Hush yourself Reaper," Drea snorted shoving at the small of Atemu's back roughly, startling him. "I have miraculous hearing."

"Miraculous everything I had thought?" Atemu smiled.

"Ha!" The Sequester laughed despite himself, surprised by Atemu's light hearted nature, and something good, something innocent, seemed to creep out of that sensual soul that was unguarded and forgiving. Atemu could learn to like it if he could see if coaxed out more often. Drea, even as an often child of Jenzar and Atreyu, didn't seem to smile freely but to see it break his features even as the Sequester muted the expression was something Atemu took pride in.

Perhaps the dark Sequester wasn't, really, so bad for all his violent passions?

"Alright, gather up!" Amar ordered briskly to their collection.

They were a ragged bunch assembled round the ceremonial fires of the Hive. Their ten standard Reapers had assembled to their credit but many appeared to be on the verge of trembling as Amar shepherded them in. Timaeus was staunch, Cobalt sneering sickly and pallid at the concept of combat. Morphis waved low and brisk in acknowledgement as he took the reverse side of their circle. Seviticus stood close to Amar's mount, leaning into the earth, and behind him Nephele drew a bashful Yusei closer with a tenderness the Timer must've inherited from Atreyu. Where Drea hugged Atemu's side, Atreyu slipped against his opposing flank and for the first Atemu realized that they had all donned charmingly elaborate armour but Atreyu had neglected any covering from his shoulders to the wrists of his gloves as he took Atemu's elbow quietly.

Atemu's arm came round the Faen's shoulders and, thoughtful, Atreyu appeared to glance up at him from the bottom of a deep pool his lulled, docile, expression tender with favouritism as he rested more of his weight into the Reaper. Atemu was as resolved as Yami at that simple look. He would return Atreyu's happiness to him.

"Our mission isn't to storm all of Tartarus," Amar warned, "just the Nest of Cassidia. We're a recovery and extermination unit not an army so any of you with delusions of _spectacular_grandeur best check them now. The nest has three structures: the outer ring, the inner ring and the sanctum.

Atreyu, Seviticus and I are going to phase our unit into the nest using Timaeus' guidance. Reapers man the exits in the outer ring. That's where the weakest of the Seer will be amassed. You'll be cloaked from their view by my magic till Atreyu sends up the signal and then they _will_panic. Your job is to keep them inside, eradicate them and keep those exits secured. Cobalt you're supervising."

"Joy," Cobalt hissed mundanely.

"The rest of us will proceed into the inner ring. Seviticus will cloak us. Once we've hit the inner dome Atreyu will wipe out as many of them as he can. That's the signal. It will give away our position. The biggest, nastiest, Seers will be in that inner ring and they _will_ attack. Our job is to keep them busy and keep them from reaching the outer ring. We secure the ring if we can. Timaeus will watch the inner ring and he will cover us. Atemu?"

"Aye?" He quirked erect.

"Atreyu's job is to find the sanctum and destroy Cassidia. Once she's gone we'll have the nest at our mercy. Chances are Jenzar Fraveous will be with her if he's captive. Your job is to make sure he gets there. Cover and guard. Think you can manage?"

"Sounds just my style."

"I thought so." The redhead snorted. "Good to go Trey?"

"They're not going to know what hit them." The Faen promised simply, the trident-esque Lance of Lazarus extended to its full form as Atreyu bounced its weight in the fingers of one hand by his side. Adjusting himself to it Atreyu drew a thin splinter of light from his clavicle and presented it to Atemu with his opposing hand releasing the Reaper from his weight. "The Needle."

"I understand," Atemu murmured, plucking the tiny morsel with his index and forefingers.

His hesitation gave way as he took the Needle onto his palm and, flaring, the weapon rippled to introduce itself to Atemu properly. It felt him with some kind of sentience and, purring perhaps, took a new shape for the Reaper to readily make use of. As reflection of Atreyu's heart, connected to his core, the Needle glowed candescent as it pulsed, thrummed, with a heartbeat of its own in Atemu's grip. It was a sword at once, something Atemu felt comfortable with, long and glorious if thin across. He was reminded, by Yami's childishness, of Excalibur which was not all together surprising given the Needle's rightful owner.

Atemu found himself securing his arms protectively round Atreyu as they phased. One arm hooked round the guarded hips, the other across his clavicle to pull the Faen's back to his chest, as the Needle battered Atemu's thigh in its scabbard. Mingled with discording sensations the Reaper had a minor spasm within his heart about the entirety of this plan. He was being depended on, as he had wanted to be, but was he good enough? Strong enough? Would he be able to defend Atreyu from the horde this one last time? He felt unprepared, fake, as if Yami was back at that dreadful high school trying to bluff his way through a speech for a book he disastrously hadn't read in its entirety.

* * *

When they manifested on the twilight planes of Tartarus Atemu was caught by their torrential, typhoon, quality. Amar, Seviticus and Atreyu had managed to place them just within the Nest at an entrance and cloaked as they were, visible only to each other, Atemu possessed the greatest urge to run for cover as he regarded the rather splendidly dreadful view.

Outside the arched entrance to the nest was a vast rocky shelf under a discontent and undecided sky that trembled with lightning and whipped up winds. The darkened, purplish and almost bruised, horizon revealed great black domes, a few hundred meters high, in all directions across the shared no mans' land that was in effect the space between trenches. They were inside one such nest and all round them, sleeping, chuckling and nuzzling were the spider like figures of at least a hundred Seers. They were thrown across the rocks, the twisting blackened modules of the inside of the nest, half atop each other with their gaunt faces, hair and elongated warped bodies that transformed them from white-blue women to spiderlike crawlers. The inside of the nest for its part was what Atemu imagined to find on the inside of a forgotten space ship: roots, blackened, ran through everything, and chaos had left the mechanical, black, disused structures overlapping everything in shambles.

Atreyu did not tremble in his arms. Amar murmured low to Cobalt and the first Reaper and, their group peeling off from the general Reapers, Atemu watched Cobalt begin, in hushed tones, to instruct the Reapers into their positions along the outer wall.

Atemu didn't envy them but nor did his understatedly brave comrades seem to envy him. As he watched them straighten their backs and part to take their positions he was reminded that a general Reaper, those who were not Specialists, were still part of a proud, noble, race of warriors and scared as they were the men and women who fell under Cobalt's command did so with a steely pride which while it did not mask their fear enabled them. These were not cannon fodder soldiers, these were not helpless souls, these were Reapers who, Specialists or not, were members of a proud linage Atemu shared and were resolved to fight.

Seviticus gestured to them and shuffling on Atreyu fell into line behind the verdigris Champion, toting his own weapon, leading them in a thin trail between the clucking Seers towards the cancerous regions of the inner ring. Atemu followed behind Atreyu silently, Drea behind him, then Morphis, Nephele and Yusei with Amar and Timaeus taking their rear so the strongest of their number effectively placed Atemu and their weaker companions sandwiched between them.

Atemu was wary of the spider Seers, the standard Seers, packed unknowingly around them with every step he took. Amar and Seviticus must've been straining massive amounts of energy to keep them cloaked and Atreyu's core being as radiantly powerful as the star it was Atemu could not fathom what it took to hide them amongst these creatures. He was wary of his voice, they were silent, and equally he was wary of his armour and his motions as he attempted to tiptoe through the tangled beds of Seers through another archway escaping the low hanging den of the outer ring.

The inner ring was the central structure under the massive dome which formed the nest Atemu realized as they entered it. The black structure arched up obscured overhead by columns and walkways as, up the sides of the dome, layers of levels stared down into the inner courtyard where they crept.

Where the outer ring was filled with a bamboozling amount of standard Seers this inner ring was a nightmarish hellion by comparison. Atemu had never seen Seers like these. They were in varying sizes and shapes: some with batlike wings on contorted limber bodies hung from the ceiling like barnacles on a ship's hull, others seemed plague ridden skeletons limping round, and one or two mammoth troll like beasts leant into a massive pillar to Atemu's right snorting and snoring. It was a carnival of Seers, a zoo, and the scent of decay and defecation was pungent.

Yusei seemed stricter in his stance than ever as they came to a halt. Atemu took half a step closer to Atreyu, who seemed to be grinning, and placed a hand on the scabbard of the Needle sword. Timaues was taunt over Atemu's shoulder ready, he guessed, to transform or else fight like a man. Seviticus stood at the forefront, Amar at the rear, of their circle and glancing between them Atemu waited patiently.

Drea seemed hardly afraid at all, bouncing on the heels of his feet, a wild, frenzied, grin controlled across his face as rolling his shoulders the Sequester prepared himself. Atemu did not doubt Drea would fight dirty. Morphis had gone into himself conversely, appeared to be mediating, as he inhaled carefully and expanding the air through his chest almost metamorphosed his stance to be firmly geared. At once Atemu could see the Champion roots in Morphis, the Knighted chivalry, the piece of him which would always be the eldest son of Jenzar Fraveous. Atemu could not be jealous but he could be surprised by the steel in Morphis' eyes. As for Nephele, the youngest, he inhaled carefully through his nose, eyes darting, and while he was clearly uneasy the Timer was not quaking but more or less he was resolved. All three of them, haphazard as they were, had been children of Jenzar and Atreyu in many lifetimes and for the chance to be so again, for their family, would fight and perhaps be destroyed here out of that fealty.

Amar nodded to Atreyu as the Faen glanced over his shoulder and turning his head back round the Faen likewise gave a curt jerk of his head to Seviticus who concurred.

Inhaling, Atreyu prepped in a taunt second like an opera singer preparing for the final note of an aria and punching his hand over his head let his voice ring out like the sound of Heaven's choir delivering divine judgement to bedlam.

"_SHINNING NOVA ESCALATION!_"

* * *

1 Morphis/Atemu/Yusei working as a trio is probably one of the biggest hints I'm going to give you about who exactly Morphis is. Get it while it's hot!

2 I don't know if any of you have ever had a moment where you've had to front up to save/protect someone or if you've ever had to face a day where you or someone you love might die but… yeah it's harsh. Hopefully I managed to capture a little of that.

3_ Malleus Malevolent_ is a (bad) joke on the _Malleus Maleficarum_ which was a popularized European witch hunters' manual in the 1500-1600s. I kid you not. It was _literally_ a witch hunters how-to-do book.

4 A brief, clumsy, glance into Yugi's perspective this chapter!

5 As a senior Watcher Timaeus is the best guide to teleport/astral project yourself somewhere specific like say… a dangerous Seer filled nest. Not a great holiday destination.

6 Amar and Seviticus could, theoretically, have cloaked them longer but that would require a mass amount of power which would eventually be noticed (they have to attack sometime) and either way if this nest of Seers knows the secret to stopping Champions they need to be exterminated.

7 Excalibur was given to King Arthur by the fantastical Lady of the Lake with who Atemu obviously finds some similarity to Atreyu.

8 Atreyu's big attack "Shinning Nova Escalation" is sort of half Stardust Dragon and half a Sailor Moon throw back some of you will recognise.

I really hope you guys are having fun!

Ps- shit gets real next chapter


	16. The Front Line in Hell

Hey guys, please excuse the crappy editing. I had a _dreadful_ day.

* * *

Chapter 16: _The Front Line in Hell_

It was what Atemu imagined standing in Hiroshima that day would've been like. The world shook. Light penetrated right through Atemu's eyelids but, passing over him, left him utterly untouched. Nothing could've prepared any of them for the force of the wave. The Seers for their part barely had time to twitch at the sound of Atreyu's booming voice before light vaporised right through the mammoth trolls, the bats, thousands of them shattered and eradicated in a brutal instant where Atreyu, totally uncaring if he destroyed the whole damn nest, unleashed his full fury.

Light consumed everything, burnt the whole world, consuming sound in an inferno and slowly, reluctantly, ebbed.

They stood all of them shaken, even Amar looked queasy, and amazed Yusei padded himself with his hands as Nephele exhaled with relief. The burning light had ripped through them and left their little unit utterly unblemished, untouched, where it had washed away sharp edged gigantic Seers. In the stunned, frozen, silence that immediately followed Atreyu ignored their awed stares.

The inner ring seemed devoid of all life, empty, the clucking, the chirping and rotting humidity swept off the table as an eerie absence of sound rippled over them. The air had cleared with a new lightness as if Atreyu had burnt off the sweaty rancid undercurrent. Morphis paused, parting his lips, to ask if they were alone and then-

In the outer ring shrieking began. The Seers howled. In the nooks and crannies of the inner ring that screaming doubled, rebounding, as more and more Seers stirred from their sleep in the aftershock of the horror and raised the alarm. Suddenly there were dozens of them seeping out of the walls, from every shadow, multiplying by the second till Atemu was sure there were hundreds more of them in the inner ring alone.

"Arms up boys!" Amar ordered.

Atemu hardly had time to think, to breathe, before the Needle was out of its scabbard and in his hand. He was sure it was the Needle that drew Atemu's hand to its hilt rather than the synapses of his own mind because then he was slicing. The Seer horde was upon them as the face of an army in total disarray and he was cutting through them like butter with the glowing sword Atreyu had entrusted to him. It seemed to tug him of its own accord into grand, weightless, sweeping motions as his mind struggled to catch up to his body.

Yusei, Morphis, Drea, Nephele, Amar, Seviticus, Timaeus and Atreyu were shouting spells that rang in his ears. Amar and Seviticus had drawn their Lances. Atreyu bounded, jumped off the head of one Seer to slice off the head of another with the crimson Lance of Lazarus. Timaeus raised his knee to his chest to kick at grovelling goffer like monstrosity which had come out of the earth itself. Yusei was miraculously holding his own. Morphis and Nephele had come back to back. Drea had become _vicious_.

It was utter discord.

The Needle would not let Atemu stop spinning on his feet, giving him only glances of what was happening beyond his nose as he fended off another unfamiliar creature. Atreyu was murderous with the Lance of Lazarus, gloriously effortless, slicing with one hand and directing tendrils of magic with the other.

The horde separated them across the ballroom like courtyard of the inner ring, seething between them and widening the gap on all sides, yet none of his companions had yet to panic. Spells ruptured, exploded, in flowing tendrils of light. Atemu could feel their strands of magic, their energy, he could _feel_ Seviticus split a Seer bull in two with a spell while Nephele ripped out the heart of a batlike beast with his bare hand in the same quick, flourishing, motion Atemu might use to pluck an apple.

This was not going to be easy. They would be fighting all night at this rate caught in the seemingly endless swell of the nest. Yet Atemu could feel the stamina of his companions, feel their bravery and confidence swelling and ricocheting off each other till it feed together to give them all some netted sense of unity.

Atreyu was shining, his power had swelled angrily and from the corner of his eye Atemu could see the unlucky Seer who brushed Atreyu's hip with its tentacle evaporate into not so much as dust. With Atreyu here they just might win but if they left to find Cassidia would the others cope?

Yusei would. Yusei had found his feet, had taken to this like a fish to water, and as Atemu lunged his sword through another vague alien shape he was aware that Yusei was holding his ground against ten or more with his spells too ferocious to back down. The boy was on the verge of unlocking his Champion potential, it seemed to crash against his inside brutally trying to escape, his signal flaring up and down in intensity. Almost instinctively it seemed Yusie cried:

"_SUMMON!_" and sweeping his hand across the air seemed to find he suddenly had a heavy silver bow in his hands. Struck by it, bemused, Yusei gave himself no time to ponder and drawing the cord back by his fingers, arrowless, channelled and released so the bow shot a blast of magic through a pack flinging them aside and shattering into the opposing wall. Then the boy didn't seem to stop firing, didn't question it, just moved like he was supposed to.

Atemu was in awe of him. The Needle lengthened and shortened in between his own fingers, thrummed and as Atemu tried to lunge forward suddenly tugged him back like a fish hook in his navel.

"_CHARGED ERUPTION!_" Atreyu's spell eradicated the wave of Seers before him where Atemu had attempted to rush and exhaling the Specialist tightened his fingers round the Needle which knew better than even he did. "Tem!"

Atreyu had never called him that.

The Faen landed before him and rushing Atemu cut at the beast behind him as Atreyu cut at those behind the Specialist. They came back to back, hitting into each other, and seemingly bound rocked together.

"Like the party?" Atreyu supposed over his shoulder.

"You do this often?" Atemu snorted in a sweep.

"More than you'd think." The Faen cackled tightly. "We need to break away to the Sanctum!"

"I know!" He grumbled. "How do you suggest we do that? In case you didn't notice we have a minor infestation here!"

"Ye of little faith!" Atreyu snorted smashing the twin heads of the trident-esque Lance through the head of a troll. "We-"

An ominous crack snapped overhead.

The Seers shrieked suddenly, silencing Atreyu, great hulking bats beating their bodies against the roof of the domed nest in an attempt to escape. Their masses shook the great archways overhead and unstably propped as they were the great stone mantles began to crumble, groaning, as they tumbled.

Atemu pivoted round to Atreyu as the stone began to fall. Across the way, some twenty metres, Seviticus and Morphis looked to be caught under the shadow of a great pillar, some thirty feet across and some hundred feet long, as fighting off a parry of bottom feeders they were unable to flee. Atmeu watched the horrified look of recognition spark across Morphis' face. Instinctively Atemu lurched to grab Atreyu round the waist and heaved the Faen into his chest, refusing to let Atreyu throw himself to their aid in the seconds between their companions and the impact.

Atreyu screamed blindly, fighting against Atemu, hand outstretched-

Seviticus and Morphis trembled, thrown together, the Seers around them scattering as the grand claws of one of Timaeus' proud beastly paws came to rest around them protectively and flexing his back the dragon let the pillar crash against him and break into monolithic pieces.

"Stunning!" Morphis laughed jovially, moment of terror broken, transfixed by the shape and quality of Timaeus' alternate form as he peaked out from round the talons.

"This is no time for compliments Morph!" Seviticus grunted grasping the Knight by the elbow and, weaving from under Timaeus claws, dragged them to face the latest horde of Seers as the dust settled from the pillars and rumbled the layers of the nest ominously.

"Thank you!" Morphis cried over his shoulder to the Atlantean, sword heaved overhead, lurching into combat to drive his scabbard against the head of some hideous spider woman.

"My boy," Atreyu moaned in Atemu's arms, and hefting the Faen Atemu pulled him further back attempting to get them into a run. The Seers had scattered in the momentary chaos. This was their chance to escape.

"We have to go Trey!" He warned. "The nest is coming out in full force! If we don't go now we might never get to the Queen!"

"R-right!" The Faen struggled, finding his feet and forcing himself to twist in Atemu's arms and grasping the Reaper's hand let them run.

The Seers had come out in their full masses now. What of the rioters Atreyu had destroyed were quickly being replaced by the plethora of Seers forms and types some filling the nest to breaking point. How the others would keep them from breaking free and maintain the levy Atemu was not certain nor concerned. They could do it. He was sure somehow but his mind was too full to think of it. His duty was to take Atreyu to the Queen and his greatest current wonder was how he would safely bring them there with this array, menagerie, of Seers in shapes and colours he had never laid eyes on. Truly they had entered into the bowels of Hell.

Atemu's boots pounded against the stone, darting, diving as Atreyu hugged his side and they tried to clear ground while the Seers were staggering to regroup. Another pillar came tumbling down, a massive obelisk, crashing behind them where Atemu's head had been not twenty seconds previously. The sounds of shouting had not stopped, Atreyu threw spells round them with the same hand he held the Lance in as though firing a laser from its crimson tip, trying to ward off and clear their way as Atemu scrambled. He spotted the staircase, slimy and uneven, up into the levels of the dome which faced into the courtyard and crying out felt himself pound harder to reach it.

He tugged at Atreyu's wrist, the Faen hurried up the first few stairs ahead of him and heaving, panting in an inhale, Atemu followed.

They hit the first long corridor like level which ran the course of the wall of the dome on one side and on the other opened up totally to the courtyard immediately bellow where the fighting continued. Atemu glanced, swinging the Needle as he and Atreyu came against what resistance they found.

Bellow them Nephele was tossed, petite body skidding across the stone, by the imposing fist of a Bull Seer: the same type of masculine creature that had once impersonated Jenzar to attempt an assassination of Atreyu and a brother of the beast which now, centaur like but morphing continuously between monstrous faces, seemed intent on destroying one of their kin. Atemu swung again against his current foe, almost backed over the edge of the ledge above Nephele and holding the Seer off with his sword saw it over his shoulder as he tried to keep his stance without falling.

Struggling onto his elbows the Timer was in pain, clearly beaten down, failing to find his feet on the crumbling stone shaking around him as his head spun. Atemu longed to help, too distracted, as his mind whirred for an appropriate spell. He couldn't run back down, couldn't leave Atreyu now…

"Child!" Amar tarried in from an upper level on the opposite side of the dome, caught in the same dilemma as Atemu, as he forced back another batlike Seer attempting to bite through his armour and rip at his cloak.

"_MIRROR FORCE!_"

Drea grunted it, seeming to appear out of nowhere in the seething mass of creatures, planting himself on stable footing between Nephele and the charging Bull Seer. The creature hit his force field, contorting, writhing up it as it expanded, Medusa reminiscent, up the sheer defence the Sequester had summoned.

"D-Drea?" Nephele stumbled quaking onto his hands and knees.

"No one-" the Sequester grunted hissing towards the Bull Seer as he poured his energy into the forced field and attempted to push it back from them, "-is allowed to maim you! I'm the only one who's allowed to make you miserable! This hellion is just going to have to take a number!"

"Drea…?" The Timer breathed weakly, arms tightening, resolved as he pushed to force himself stumbling onto his feet and wrapping his arms round the Sequester relieved some of the pressure of the onslaught by giving the other something to lean into. "Let's destroy it!"

"Together then!" The Sequester dismissed sharply. "Ready? One, two-"

"_ANNIHILATION!_"

Atemu felt himself breath again, kicking at the Seer before him, casting another wary glance over his shoulder to see the Bull Seer explode in a grotesque, gruesome, mess of gunk and limbs. Nephele clung to Drea for a second but as the nearest Seers closed in on them again the Sequester roughly forced the Timer off him and screaming flew back into battle like a harpy.

With that, heart lurching back into his chest, Atemu returned himself fully to the service of Atreyu.

These souls weren't his family in the same way they were Atreyu's but he found he cared deeply for each and every one of them. To lose any of them would be a terrible burden.

"Atemu! Here!" Atreyu hollered, slicing at a Seer as he held open a veined, black, door he had wrenched open from the wall.

Picking up his feet Atemu jogged, darting, and ducking ahead of him the Faen disappeared into the undiscovered passage. As Atemu tumbled through it Atreyu slammed the door shut behind them, Seers beating into it like wild beasts, and turning the Faen ran ahead. Atemu forced his body off his panting hands and knees after him, the Needle glowing radiantly in his hand, Atreyu sparkling ahead enough to fill the dark passage with light.

* * *

The floor was uneven, the passage a catacomb prickled with bones that crunched beneath Atemu's feet as his heart rattled in his chest. It twisted, left and right, in sharp corners and driven Atemu found they were running down deeper and deeper into the bowels of the earth.

"We must be getting- _Ah!_" Atreyu shrieked, stumbling back, Atemu running into his back.

The Faen held Atemu back, stiffening, and pressing his mouth to the Faen's earlobe Atemu gasped as his gaze followed Atreyu's light down the dank corridor. Hands, thick to skeletal, stuck from the ceiling, the walls, the floor… groping senselessly while they waited for something to wander into their web.

Atreyu paused, bit his lip, and Atemu frowned.

"What are they?" He whispered.

"Security, sensors," Atreyu replied lowly. "We must be getting close to the Sanctum."

"They'll tell Cassidia we're approaching." He supplied in conclusion and nodding languidly Atreyu raised waved one milky, flawless, hand before them.

"_ERADICATE!_" He hissed.

The hands, all of them, vanished sparking up the distant regions of the long catacomb into the far distance as they were destroyed. Horrified Atemu found himself beginning to yell at the Faen before he was silenced by a single, cold, finger brushing his lips.

"Let Cassidia know we're coming." He spat eyes flashing beneath the coils of his ebony fringe. "Let Cassidia know _I'm_ coming for her."

"We must hurry then," Atemu sighed warily, the Faen's vengeance would not be dissuaded by anything he said. "We're almost there."

Nodding curtly, Atreyu pivoted and kicking up his feet resumed their jog down the now stripped corridor into the bowels of the ruined earth beneath the nest.

* * *

There was no other way, no other channel, and Atemu was sure they had been running for long uneasy moments waiting for something to emerge. He was beginning to doubt if they were headed in the right direction, desiring to turn back, cautious of being trapped but Atreyu relentless still pushed them on. What is this was a trap? A false trail?

"I can feel her," the Faen murmured harshly, "I can feel…"

"What?" Atemu whispered.

"Something else…" Atreyu hesitated as he slowed their pace but in the silence between them Atemu heard it, the thumping, and glancing down saw the Lance of Lazarus pulsing, beating, like a heart in Atreyu's grasp.

Atemu held back his voice as they passed through a tight arch way into a pitch black void. Stone rolled out under their feet and as Atreyu moved out from under the arch way, from the catacomb, into the new space the Faen's sparkling light cut through the shadows like a beacon. The Needle and Atreyu glowed, light permeating the Faen's skin and through his armour, and the effect was more keenly visible here in the utter darkness.

Atreyu's combined lights sent beams up into the shadows and told Atemu that there were in some massive, perhaps empty, chamber which stretched out far before them in all directions reaching beyond where Atreyu's light diffused, withered, into insignificance. They stood, in the cold death of the place which was tomb like in its ancient silence as if some dwarf mine carved out in a mountain side by a dragon.

Here Atemu could not hear the fighting in the inner ring of the nest, the lightning of Tartarus, or the moans of beasts. All he could make out now was his breathing, Atreyu's breathing, and the insistent thumping of the Lance of Lazarus between the Faen's fingers. The thrumming, the drum beat, of the Lance created a monster somewhere in the shadows with the help of Atemu's imagination.

Atreyu's eyes roved the emptiness sceptically, untrusting, with his ancient understanding and seemed not to be able to feel anything in the darkness within his reach. Could Atreyu read the pulses of this dimension? Or was the home of the Seers too hectic to follow? He had found their hidden door into the sanctum but how much could be hidden from him Atemu wondered. He inhaled, waiting for Atreyu to make a move reactant to make a misstep of his own unless ordered. Suspicious but clearly unable to sense anything Atreyu nodded to him.

"Stay close." He whispered.

"Which way?" Atemu muttered lowly.

"Straight ahead."

Atreyu took a steady step, then another, Atemu followed two paces behind and their clopping boots echoed in the shadows giving him some idea of the spatial vastness of the void. Atreyu's light stretched ahead and shrunk behind. Over his shoulder Atemu could see the door becoming vaguer till it lost definition and they were afloat in a sea of darkness with no compass but Atreyu's instinct.

As Atemu's head came back round he knew something was wrong. His stomach fell, Atreyu's step became more uncertain and like Orpheus in the underworld Atemu was tempted to look back where they had come rather than dig forward. Something was wrong.

Atreyu had almost stopped his progress, Atemu had paused, and straining his ears and his eyes the Reaper lurched when a sheer, black, wall rose up with a whoosh between he and Atreyu.

"Atemu!" The Faen screamed.

"Trey!" Atemu ran forward senselessly, fist hitting the surface of the wall, and head whipping left to right found that more had sprung up round him.

The Needle flickered in his hand, still glowing radiantly enough to be his lantern, and furious he had let them be separated Atemu swore vehemently.

"Trey?" He called again. "Trey can you hear me!"

"It's a maze!" Atreyu's voice called faintly back over the wall which to Atemu seemed to stretch up towards the ceiling.

"Can you break through the walls?" Atemu shouted.

"Not without damaging the place!" Atreyu warned. "I don't know what we'll risk if I destroy it! We'll have to find a way to each other! Use the Needle! It's connected to me!"

"I'll try!" He swore. "I'm coming!"

Cursing Atemu exhaled heavily through his nostrils and poured his focus to the Needle. It sparkled in his hand, blade shimmering, and sighing he closeted his self loathing for later.

"Come on then," he urged to himself, to Yami, to the Needle casting his eye unhappily round the corners of this labyrinth. "We best find him."

The Needle flared, lighting his way, and struck by a strange impulse Atemu held the sword aloft and extending his arm pointed its tip to the left. Nothing, at first, and still curious he pointed it to his right like the Needle of a compass. From the tip of the Needle a thin, glistening, beam of light extended into the darkness.

The Needle, fixed to Atreyu, was leading the way.

Heaving with relief Atemu once more placed himself into its knowing hands. He trusted it with his life and even more so with Atreyu's. Pacing himself, unsure of what each corner would bring Atemu took each step with the blade carefully.

Right, left, right, left, left… deeper and deeper into the maze which stretched unfamiliar and seamlessly dull for what felt like miles. Atemu pushed himself onward. He was a bodyguard. He could not abandon his charge. He would be with Atreyu when they faced Cassidia. He would not let the Faen face that alone. He only prayed that Atreyu, tempted by the pulsing of the Lance of Lazarus, wouldn't be driven to follow it to Jenzar or some trap. Atemu knew in his heart that Atreyu was mellower, more reasonable, than his imagination suggested but time was not in their favour and the Faen had not been particularly mellow this evening. Truer yet the night was wearing on and their companions couldn't struggle in the nest above forever.

The light strand extending from the tip of the Veil's Needle spluttered as Atemu meet a fork in the road. He turned the sword his way and that but the beam would not flare back to life. Was the Needle lost? Had Atreyu been lost? Atemu frowned, desperate but frozen as he tried to consider what he could do now.

Cursing quietly the cast his eyes to either side of him, unsure where to go, straining his mind to remember some gamblers rule or clue that might aid him now. Nothing came to mind and thoughtful he gazed at the wall before him. Was it just that he was here at his destination? Was Atreyu hidden somewhere?

The wall before him, seamless and faultless, was still but as Atemu gazed at it the surface slowly, ever so slowly, began to bubble…?

Like the surface of a primordial pool the wall bubbled, churning, a cauldron and moisture ran down its surface to the rocky floor. Atemu frowned, watched, waited…

A tendril of darkness shot out like a tentacle from the wall and hissing Atemu dogged it but the Needle was struck from his hand and scattered to his side. He lunged for it. Another tendril punctured the wall and coming free of it tackled Atemu to the stone. A second, a third, joined the first and pinning him forced him to the ground where they drove themselves into the stone like stakes.

Atemu squirmed. The weight of the tendrils pinning him to the ground had the heavy, warm, tenderness of arms attempting to manhandle him. They were dark, inhuman, and seemingly trapped he felt them constrict around him. Claustrophobia, suffocation, came to him and fighting Atemu tried in vain to reach for the light of the Needle just beyond his reach.

"Found you."

It was a whisper. Soft and coolly calm.

"Trey?" Atemu struggled, trying to work himself onto his elbows and spotting the Faen found himself caught trying to speak. Atreyu's lithe body had come through the cauldron surface of the wall, dragging the Lance behind him, glancing about him and settling on Atemu moved closer. "Please I-"

Atreyu's boot came down on his neck with steady, firm, pressure that forced him flat upon his back and crushed his windpipe to almost silence. The pressure did not abate but was insistent and panicking for reason Atemu fumbled.

"T-trey?" He croaked hoarsely.

"_Shh_," the Faen ordered contrastingly gentle juxtaposed against the harshness of his stance, "I don't have much time Atemu."

"What are you doing?" He croaked as the tendrils tightened till the bones grinded within his limbs. They would crush him.

"Disposing of you," Atreyu whispered gently in explanation. "If I do it now I can blame the Seers for it. You understand. Never fear Atemu. I'll tell them you vanished into the pit a hero"

"Why?" Atemu panicked.

"Do I need a reason?" The Faen snorted sweetly. "I'm stronger and older than you. What's to stop me from removing your soul from your body and making sure you never reincarnate? If you really need a reason I suppose there's plenty: you're still a traitor, a liar, a fake and I can't have Jenzar thinking I'm a whore because I've been filling in time with you while he's been gone, can I?"

"Ngh!" The Reaper struggled, legs contorting against the binds to try and force the strength in his thighs to heave him free.

"I'll make it quick," Atreyu promised, tightening the Lance between his fingers as he raised it over head intent to lacerate through Atemu's chest. "Trust me. Jenzar would've tortured you."

"No!"

"Bye Tem." He sighed.

"_FATAL SPLINTERS!_"

Atreyu and Atemu alike had only a second's glance, the words hitting them, before raw blades of magic lacerated through Atreyu and shattering him tore the Faen to bloody pieces. Atemu lurched, the tendrils round him suddenly abating, and rumbling the maze began to melt round him. It started to fade to nothingness simultaneously, bubbling like the spot on the wall Atreyu had emerged from, as Yusei slid to his side to assist the Reaper back onto his feet with wandering hands that instinctively ferreted for wounds.

"Are you alright?" The boy demanded stoutly.

"Aye, thanks to you," Atemu praised rubbing his hand against the aching length of his neck at the memory.

"Did I just…?"

"That wasn't Atreyu," the Reaper assured the young Champion, "there's no way."

"I hoped you'd say that," Yusei chuckled weakly, hands easing off Atemu as the monolithic walls of the maze dissipated their last to sickening smoking goo about their feet.

Clinging against each other, coming back to back, Yusei and Atemu were instinctively cautious as the dust settled and they spread their eyes round the once more vast empty darkness of this inner dome of the nest. Gazing over the plain Atemu caught sight of Atreyu's light, a beacon, immediately as the Faen barrelled towards them.

"Yusei!" He cried in awe. "You followed us!"

"I'm sorry," the young man insisted, "I had a bad feeling."

"You're _genius_." Atreyu insisted stubbornly, reaching them to thread his arms round Atemu's neck and throw his body into the Reapers'. "Are you alright?"

"Thanks to our friends." He promised hands skirting the Faen's hips. "What was that?"

"A Shadow Ghoul," the other elaborated, "a nasty type of Seer used for defence. They create illusions like that maze. I didn't feel it before it was too late and then I didn't think I'd get to you in time."

"We must be getting close then," Yusei supposed. "If the beasts are throwing up such defences we must be encroaching upon their inner sanctum."

"Aye," Atreyu mused solemnly, "I can feel the power. We've almost reached the Queen I'm sure. Where were the others when you left?"

"Amar, Timaeus, Nephele and the General Reapers have secured the exits. Morphis, Sev and Drea are scouring the nest to drive more out. I lost track of Cobalt."

"Probably spying," Atreyu dismissed, "you best stay with us. Come on."

"We're to storm the Queen?"

"Atemu and I are to storm the Queen," the Faen corrected, palm settling over Yusei's cheek. "You're to watch our backs. If she tries to escape you're to slow her down and if she defeats us I want you to go gather the others to finish her. I won't die without knowing she's doomed."

"Aye Sir," the boy consented without argument, "I'll do my best."

"I know you will." Atreyu smiled. "Let's go."

Nodding Atemu knelt to pluck up the Veil's Needle aware of how the sentient unease of the darkness had somewhat abated at the destruction of the Shadow Ghoul and its maze.

* * *

The door they reached to Cassidia was misleadingly inconspicuous. Atemu could barely hear his own breathing over the palpitations of the Lance of Lazarus between Atreyu's fingers when they reached it. Taunt, Atreyu gave a reluctantly smiling nod to Yusei who responded in kind.

"Good luck," Yusei murmured, "I know you'll win."

"Be on your guard," the Faen warned, "I might not be able to give you much time to escape and you'll have to make light of your own once I leave."

"I'll manage." He promised. "Good luck Atemu."

"Thank you brother," the Reaper mourned, would he see Yusei again? Would he leave this place with Atreyu?

Atreyu's fingers brushed the door and in short, graceful, motions the Faen opened the way and took the first step into the sanctum where Cassidia, Queen of a Seer nest, was lying expectantly in wait for their approach. Atemu followed, his fingers painfully tense round the hilt of the Needle and as Atreyu closed the door between they and Yusei he found not a grand chamber but a low ceiling expanse cut, crisscrossed, by dark hung curtains which encroached upon any sense of space.

Atreyu rippled, the Lance pounded like a drum, and with its twin trident tip before him Atreyu took the step further.

Silence permeated round them, swirling, as Atreyu brushed aside the first curtain with the tip of his Lance and their feet crept over the rock. Was there a dragon waiting for them in this pit? Atemu found himself almost sure there was. The temperature here was not bitterly cold like the one they had just exited, instead it was hung with the humidity of volcanic heat which seemed to bleed from the faceless walls.

"_My heart is pierced by Cupid,_" Atreyu lilted, lush voice unfurling through the darkness. "_I disdain all glittering gold. There is nothing can console but my jolly sailor bold…_"

The Faen was glittering, almost dripping with power, soft voice ringing with the clear clarity of a bell's chime. It was a warning.

"_His hair it hangs in ringlets, his eyes as black as coal, my happiness attend him wherever he may go…_"

Atemu could feel nothing, hear nothing, but Atreyu's twinkling voice spreading through the shrouded darkness and at its sound something else seemed to shrink, hissing, back.

"_From Rower Hill to Blackwall I'll wander, weep and moan all for my jolly sailor. Until he sails home…_"

The curtains they drifted through felt like the waves of an oily sea and the unfurled, parting round a shore line, as they approached a light which came neither from the Needle nor from Atreyu.

"_A fig for his riches, his merchandise and gold. True love has grafted my heart. Give me my sailor bold…_"

Atreyu's tone was melodic. The drenching dank eeriness of the darkness more embodied by his song and again Atemu heard the warning in it. Atreyu was letting them be known and letting it be known he was utterly inconsolable to negotiations. Hopefully it would put any retainers to the Queen off attacking.

"_My heart is pierced by Cupid. I disdain all glittering gold. There can console me by my jolly sailor bold…_"

The Faen drifted off the note as he brushed aside the veil between them and this mysterious external light to reveal it to them.

Before a throne, bellow the dais, a burning light glowed unattended within a glass column. Atemu gasped, air evacuating his lungs, and feet motioning with spirit of their own Atreyu crept ever closer to graze his fingers along the glass. The light doubled, almost blinding, illuminating the shadowy corners and cutting through the curtains to give Atemu a brief glimpse of the body in the throne above them. The Lance of Lazarus thrummed in Atreyu's grasp, thumping, glowing crimson.

"_My heart is pierced by Cupid. I disdain all glittering gold. There is nothing can console me but my jolly sailor bold?"_

Atemu startled, Atreyu's eyes flickered from the vessel of light and in the throne that disgusting thing Atemu had glimpsed sung back to the Faen curiously in a pretty, girlish, lilt. Atemu had thought, foolishly, that what he had seen in the throne was a long abandoned corpse. What he had seen, that terrible rotten thing, was that…?

"Cassidia," Atreyu rumbled.

"Sweetling Meatbag," Cassidia crooned and in the shadow of the light which did not stretch to her Atemu could almost have believe the voice was that of a petite little girl. "Must've been so lonely without your weapon, we've been keeping him safe in the Lost and Found, did you know a Champion soul can power a nest for four hundred years?"

Her voice excitedly, so simple, like a child fretting joyously over a miraculous toy and Atreyu's Needle began to pound between Atemu's fingers, to heat, to ripple with righteous fury that shimmered reflected just beneath the surface of the Faen's lighted profile. Atreyu's breath fluttered, not with fear but rather with rage.

Something rustled the curtains behind them, surrounding them, and tightening his grasp on the Needle as it began to burn Atemu tried to strain his eyes to make out the shapes creeping in around them.

"Should we see what a Faen core can do?" Cassidia chirped merrily. "I've always wanted one!"

"So that's what this was about," Atreyu mused. "You've finally thought of a way to remove Faens from the equation and increase your own power. Those Seers have been trying to steal my soul, my core, after you removed my Champion from my defences and now that didn't work Jenzar's become bait…"

"Well I needed practice before I asked Denn-Elec and Vegas to play."

"Amar and Sev's Faens," he murmured, "if you had all three of Earth's Faens under wraps you could wreck hell on the Veil. That's surprisingly well thought out for a species that hates order. Who helped you with that or are you really such a nasty_ bitch_?"

"Mama will have to slap you for that _whore_." The Queen warned, sing-song, and delighted. "Then Mama's going to eat your ducklings."

Whether Cassidia meant Yusei and Atemu or Jenzar and Atreyu's children Nephele, Morphis and Drea it was a _very _foolish threat to make. If it had come from anything less than a Seer Queen Atemu would've said a prayer for them but Cassidia, well, there was the real chance that she could hold her own against Atreyu.

"You're not going to touch me." The Faen promised. "You lay a finger on me and I'll turn my core inside out. I'll shatter myself into so many pieces I'll obliterate you right along with me. If you regenerate you'll never be a Queen again. Who we are, what we are, as we exist now will be destroyed. We'll never reform in the same shape."

"And all your friends will die in the explosion." Cassidia warned shrilly, mocking, a little girl watching the climax of a children's film. "You'll never see the Prince again."

"I can die knowing he loved me till the bitter end." Atreyu supposed. "Besides, my family might be in danger but so are you. You've got just as much to lose."

"Oh that's no fun!" She whined. "Besides, I can't let you all go home. If I let the Prince out you and he will destroy me anyway because I know the big bad secret to stopping you."

"We will," the Faen promised, "but I can't make you release him."

"We're stuck then." Cassidia sighed. "What should we play now?"

They were at an impasse then. Two interlocked powers holding their draw viciously to maintain themselves and their goals. Atreyu's bolstered light didn't wane for a thoughtful second but the Needle cooled from its fury in Atemu's fingers and face taunt the Reaper would've demonstrated his relief unless he knew better than to do so. The Faen ran his fingers along the vessel of Jenzar's trapped soul and seemed to consider, head tilting ever so subtly as he regarded this light that was the captured Champion's soul.

His lips pursed a fraction, brow creased, fingers tracing over the glass. He was looking at something, for something, but what Atemu couldn't imagine. The light within the vessel seemed one gluttonous, shapeless, mass to his untrained eye. Atreyu however, he reminded himself, could see veins of energy and understand magic maybe even capture a message from Jenzar when the Champion was trapped in this intangible form? The Faen let his hand drift off the glass, unresolved and unassured in whatever he had been searching for both raised his chin to Cassidia.

"Why don't we settle this like the Queens of Earth?" He murmured. "Your strongest warrior against mine. If I win then you let Jenzar free and we will destroy you. If you win then you can have my soul as well."

It was a gambler's suggestion, crazy nearly, but more strategic than letting the two biggest players in the Hive batter against each other bluntly. Atreyu must've known, as Amar must've known, that something like this might happen. Cassidia would always know in any scenario that they were coming to besiege her as soon as they were found in the nest and being found was inevitable. Jenzar's condition was a wild card which meant not much more planning could be made so something like this too was inevitable. It all fell suddenly to Atemu.

It was inevitable that Atreyu couldn't outright attack Cassidia at the first impasse so it made no wonderment of the fact the Faen hadn't hide their arrival. It was inevitable too that something like this would happen and then that Cassidia too would be in a corner. Both ends of this tug of war had been caught from the beginning Atemu realized terribly. The generals had known they'd end with a stalemate breaker in overtime. Amar, Sev, Atreyu and the Gate Keeper must've _planned_ for this. Of course, Atemu rued, of course then Yugi would be so paralysed with fear. This had always been a crazy, play it by ear, battle to fight. Yet, as Cassidia made clear, she had to be destroyed either way.

This was, if such a thing existed, raw and cruel fate. Atemu saw it. It was almost destiny then that Cassidia was so effortlessly swift to reply simply:

"You can't use your Champion."

"Fine," Atreyu permitted, "but my man gets the Lance of Lazarus or my Needle."

"Agreed."

"Then why don't we take this back up to the inner ring?"

"You prepare your toy and I'll prepare mine," Cassidia dismissed jovially, child's tone never wavering.

* * *

In the inner ring Amar and the others had left the place nearly abandoned. The remaining, fierce, Seers and the more standard spider Seers amassed like fodder had clustered round the edges of the inner ring. The general Reapers must have still been guarding the exits in the outer ring but there in the inner ring Amar had gathered all of their community together back-to-back on all sides defensively. They had become a unit but Cassidia must've somehow sent out a pulse which told the Seers not to attack so instead with beady black eyes they chirped, cicada like, watching, and waiting over their intruders.

Yusei hugged close between Atreyu and Atemu as they resumed the fray from the inner sanctum and smartly took a place between Morphis and Cobalt in the circle. Amar frowned, Atreyu beckoned and for a tense moment the Faen explained their predicament.

"I understand." Amar nodded solemnly. "You have a plan to tip our favours?"

"I have _one_," the Faen prefaced, "best start praying. If it fails I can't guarantee you much time to think of an escape for you and the others. I doubt Cassidia will just let you go free."

"I wouldn't abandon you." The redhead swore.

"Never mind me," Atreyu hissed flippantly, "I can die here with Jenzar if have to but Denn's waiting for you at home. You and Sev have to protect Earth if anything happens. You're the only man I trust to get my children out of here. I refuse to let them die in this awful place."

"They would for you."

"A good parent doesn't ask them too," the Faen snapped, "now promise me you'll forget about me and turn all your energies to getting the other's from here."

"I…" the red head clutched Atreyu's forearms in his curled, gloved, fingers and appeared to deliberate. Strategy won out. "I promise. Even if she takes you prisoner too we can still return one day. If she takes you and Jenzar then Denn, Vegas, Sev and I _will _come to save you."

"Have a damn good plan when you do." Atreyu warned but seemed contented at least that Amar would now have more information to go off of in the event of another needed strike. If Atreyu failed but the others escaped then this had at least been a successful scouting. "Now go keep the other's prepped. I have to get Atemu ready."

"Atemu?" Amar blinked.

"Me?" Atemu flared baulking from his sympathetic idling.

"Amar go," Atreyu ordered softly, pushing the Champion back and nodding the redhead stubbornly dragged himself across the rocky shelf back to the anxious others. "Atemu I have an idea. Not a very good one mind but if you trust me then I think we can win this."

"Atreyu…" he fumbled, "I would do anything you asked, I would fight for you this second, but surely you don't want to risk so much on a Specialist as weak as myself? Surely Seviticus or Amar are better equipped! With your Needle and their own Lances then-"

"It won't be enough." The Faen dismissed taking Atemu's hand in his as his other bore Jenzar's Lance of Lazarus. "Listen to me. I want you to use Jenzar's Lance. I honestly believe with it in your hands then we can win. If you can activate its emergency mode then nothing Cassidia's warrior can throw at you will suffice to quell it. Then we'll win."

"But I don't know how!" Atemu panicked. "I won't be responsible for having your soul taken prisoner!"

"_Trust it._" Atreyu hissed, squeezing Atemu's fingers viciously in his, "I believe you can do this. I trust your heart and I trust Jenzar's. The Lance responds to, understands, the hearts of others. To protect everyone here, to protect me, I honestly believe the Lance will unfurl its secret for you to do so."

"_Why?_" He pleaded. "I am a traitor. I have been weak. I am naturally Jenzar's enemy, I would take his place, why should his weapon help me?"

"I can't explain it to you Atemu," the Faen murmured. "I can't be sure yet myself why I would vest my fate in this but I will. I have hope, I have courage, and I trust you. Please, just have faith in me. Just try your best. Just be yourself. Just be as wonderful as you always have been and then maybe…I… _please._"

Blind faith was their last resort. This was what Atreyu would throw his last hand in on, a wild card, a crazy idea he himself couldn't totally reason but would follow on instinct alone. What did Atreyu's eyes see that Atemu could not? That Amar could not? Why now? Why this? Atemu was sure his heart would break if he had to return to the Hive and say: '_I am the reason Atreyu Damestaire, Third Faen of Earth, is gone_'. That would be a cross too great to bear. He could not stand to know that he may yet be the reason that Yugi's body would die, empty, without a soul as young and beautiful, warm and soft, as it was today.

He was sure still that Jenzar's heart, Jenzar's Lance, would know immediately the dark, jealous, nature of his dreams for Atreyu and that to touch the Champion's weapon may very well destroy him before the battle had even begun. He had avoided it now for so long. He had repulsed from the Lance of Lazarus in all the forms it took and had till now been so careful to run away from it. Could he really use it as he had used Atreyu's Needle? With his core inactive, hidden, and his own magic too weak to forge a weapon of his own how could he bear the Lance? What if Amar could not orchestrate an escape when he failed? Denn-Elec and Vegas, Amar and Seviticus' Faens, may lose their Champions and be left unguarded. If they fell than Earth would be doomed, the Veil would be in chaos, order would be compromised irrevocably.

Worse still: Cobalt and Timaeus who had come with them here may lose their own souls, Cobalt who was Kaiba with a little brother and a smile that made Joey happy. Ryou would have no one beside him but Bakura. Yusei would never discover he was a Champion, never find his own Faen on whatever far off planet he lived on when he was awake. Morphis, Drea and Nephele who had so oft been the pride and joy, the children, of Jenzar Fraveous and Atreyu Damestaire would be lost. With them would go the last manifestation of Atreyu and Jenzar's love, with them would go the last souls who would carry memories of them perfectly in love throughout time, with them a part of Atreyu would die eternally.

How could Atemu bear that?

"Atemu," Atreyu whispered carelessly, dropping the Lance to take Atemu's cheeks in his grasp and draw them close to each other. "Don't give up. I have almost given up who I was in Sanctuary. I know sometimes Yugi and I might seem worlds apart but I believe in you just as much as he does."

"I don't want to fail you." He cringed.

"No matter what happens," the Faen murmured their noses brushing as Atreyu hushed himself so low Atemu had to strain himself to hear, "I want you to know I love you."

"You…" Atemu's breath caught in his throat, hand fumbling over Atreyu's nearly frightened, pained, face. To hear it from steadfast eternally loyal Atreyu, to hear it from Yugi, to finally have it meant this way was…"Really?"

"Just as much as Jenzar, the same way," he promised. "I mean it."

"I love you too." He hushed. "I wish we'd met in the first life."

"I know," the Faen whined softly, "but you can do this."

"I'll try." Atemu sighed pained. "If I win though…"

"If you win," Atreyu promised feverishly reverent, "everything will somehow be okay. I just know it."

"_How?_" He struggled to fathom.

"I can't explain it." The Faen murmured. "I just know."

"I suppose," Atemu laughed, letting his hand waver across Atreyu's cheek. "The word of a Faen should be good enough for me."

* * *

1 A bit of fan art for chapter 13 or 14 (the Venice dance hunt) by Pika92 is up on Livejournal under the user name Saitoki under the 4th of August entry. Also there's a gorgeous little lol doujinshi in the July 15th entry!

2 Oh god long combat chapter… Is it wrong that however cliché and sappy this chapter is I have a fuck tonne of fun writing it?

3 "Jolly Sailor Bold" is an old British song about the trial and tribulations of loving poor sailors. It's gorgeous. You can find a full version of it on youtube that's incredibly eerie.

4 Okay so, strategically, the Gate Keeper, Trey and Amar haven't done anything massively underhanded. It's natural in types of warfare for both sides to be stuck in some way. Sometimes war is more geared towards the defender or the attacker. In a lot of cases it makes more sense not to tell the ground soldiers the big plan either because, however logical it is, it panics them. In this case they had to force Cassidia into a point where they were both stalemated so by forcing her to take some kind of new action with them they could change the balance. That make any sense?

5 Ahem: OH MY GOD JENZAR! Yes indeed he has been captive of the Seers. He's currently intangible. More on him next time~

6 Yep. Trey said, clearly and plainly, he loves Atemu. I know Yugi had said it in not so many words but I know it means something entirely different to mean to hear _Atreyu_say it himself. Maybe you disagree?

7 BIG HINT: 'Mirror Force' is a trap card and 'Shadow Ghoul' is a monster card in Duel Monsters. Not a coincidence~

Hope you guys get a giggle out of this. Love you all loads. Have a fab week!


	17. All Hail the King

Hey Beautifuls, thanks for all your well wishes last week. This chapter is a little bit longer than usual and hopefully very enjoyable. Have fun kiddos!

* * *

Chapter 17: _All Hail the King_

"What is _that?_" Atemu murmured tensely as Cassidia finally joined them inside the inner ring.

Under the clearer light, her full profile exposed, Atemu could not have imagined anything worse. For her diminutive little voice her body was the full, plump, form of a woman. Black hair hung limp in chunks from her scalp, her eye sockets sat as rotten orifices, her cheeks seemed split to contort her smile painfully wide and her body which could have almost been human appeared a rotting, wounded, visage which trailed her lower intestines behind her with each step.

"It's an illusion." Atreyu dismissed smoothly. "Don't pay it any attention. Be more concerned with what she's brought with her; a Mannequin Prince."

"What?" The Reaper frowned casting his eyes back to Cassidia's side where an equally dreadful body followed woodenly on a chain leash.

The thing seemed puppet like. It was sheened, plastic almost, from head to toe with moulded, stiff, features. Atemu was reminded of an old naked Ken doll Yami had once found. Seamless as the creature was even its face was painted on in the style of some fifties department store mannequin. The smile it held fixed was eerily cheery as it moved by its own motivations to follow Cassidia brokenly.

"Don't let it fool you." Atreyu warned. "It's _incredibly_ dangerous. You can't afford to take your eyes off it for a second."

"No cheating!" Cassidia warned, sing song and shrill from her mutilated face, as she held a glowing glass vessel aloft in one hand to demonstrate to Atreyu that she still held Jenzar in her clutches. "Give the toy a weapon and let's play!"

"You'll get your game!" Atreyu spat over his shoulder, sighing, plucking the Lance of the Lazarus from the stone to present to Atemu. "Be very careful."

"I will." Atemu promised handing the Needle to Atreyu in response. The sword the Needle had taken the form of vanished and darted back to reform tucked behind Atreyu's slender ear as a thin silver needle. Tempting fate and hesitant to take the Lance Atemu fleetingly stole the seconds to press his lips to Atreyu's forehead.

"_Whore!_" Cassidia cackled.

The Seers chirped like uproarious birds those that had the lungs or the vocal cords to do so laughing nastily with their Queen. Atemu ignored them, Atreyu ignored them, and with a morose smile the Faen gestured to the Lance of Lazarus solemnly with his eyes.

"I'll do my best." Atemu promised and with a heavy heart took the Lance from Atreyu's musician's fingers into his darker paws.

The initial tension eased as the Lance, thumping still, appeared to try and discern who Atemu was. A strange pulse of energy ran through his limbs as he touched it, held it between his hands, and though the Lance of Lazarus did not burn him and held its shape as the two pronged crimson trident all at once it seemed to weigh an exuberant amount.

Atreyu stepped back, cringed, as Atemu stumbled to adjust to the sudden influx of weight and groaning tried to take a more effective starting stance with the unwieldy Lance. The Seers laughed.

Did Atreyu recant his strategic decision? Give the mulled expression upon his face as he backed from Atemu and settled somewhere on the stone to stand between Atemu and their companions the Reaper couldn't be sure what the Faen was thinking. He himself was intensely fearful. The Lance didn't seem to be resisting him but its weight was amazingly surreal. The Lance had taken a very strong, very slender, shape but it held the load of a full grown man in it as Atemu tried to contemplate fighting with it. It wasn't like the Needle, it wouldn't lightly drag him along, he was quite certain.

They may already have been doomed.

_No!_ Yami frazzled within him. _We have to do this, we have to win, Jenzar may not like us but he wouldn't just let Atreyu be ruined. _

Atemu tried to gather it, heard the rumble of the thought, as the Mannequin Prince hobbled into its starting position. Yes, perhaps Yami was right, whether he and Jenzar were rivals they both loved Atreyu so, surely, they could unify on that single willed desire.

The Lance, to Atemu's great surprise, lightened. Not completely but a fraction of the weight which made it unbearable to hold aloft diminished and, marvelling, the Reaper supposed Yami must've been right. Lurching, stabilising, as he tried to accommodate himself to the weight of the Lance Atemu prepared himself.

"Go!" Cassidia ordered shrilly and the Mannequin Prince animated immediately.

"Ah!" Atemu cringed, forced to fling the Lance up between his hands, across himself, as the Mannequin's stiff hand was attempting to come down upon his skull in a flicker of an instant.

Damn it was fast!

Strong too, Atemu rued, feet skidding between the weight of the Lance and the force of the stiff wooden arm trying to bear down on him all at once. He grunted, raising his knee to his chest, kicking out against the chest of the Mannequin in a lash motion. It was enough to surprise the doll and send it back a foot or two but at the same lightning speed it rediscovered its footing and lunged back with the opposing arm. Atemu was forced to shift the central focus of his weight, change the pivot of the Lance between his fingers, to continue the defensive and felt his calves protest at the effort expelled.

If he remained on the defensive like this he'd never win. The Mannequin however apparently had little interest in prolonging this attacking and whipping its arm back came down on Atemu from another angle. The Reaper barely countered, wrists shaking, between the heft of the Lance and the unnatural speed of the Mannequin Prince he was more sluggish than he should've been. If he'd had Atreyu's Needle pumping power into him, tugging him with effortless speed, than this would've been only too easy but Atreyu had insisted he take the Lance. Why?

_Not really the time to overthink it_, Yami warned cringing inside him, and grunting under another barrage Atemu concurred.

The Seers were cackling, whinnying like beasts, Atemu was vaguely aware but he had no real focus to take in the tense, wary, faces of his nervous companions as he struggled for himself. He needed to be faster _now_.

The Mannequin lashed, right, left… Atemu fumbled to block still unable to turn to the offensive and feeling the effort of every motion. The doll came at him, one-two, and a lash of that great strength knocked Atemu off his feet and sent him rolling over himself, skidding, across the rock till he was four or five feet away coughing. The Lance had escaped his fingers and the Mannequin merely watched, unperturbed and teasingly patient, as Atemu struggled onto his hands and knees to retrieve it.

His fingers fumbled over his side. Between the slits of his armour a stray piece of rock had sliced at his side and running his dirty, dusty, fingers along it he hissed as his other hand fished to find the Lance.

As his fingers brushed the crimson metal, aching, bruised, the most peculiar thing happened. His hand fastened round the body of the Lance and the paper cut like sting in his side evaporated blisteringly. Atemu's free hand flickered, finding the wound gone, and glancing over the Lance took it awed back into his hands.

_You really are on my side!_ He decided to himself, realizing the implications, Jenzar had healed him! At the influx of confidence the Lance of Lazarus was suddenly natural, almost weightless, in his fingers but careful not to show the sudden, incredible, ease Atemu raised his chin to the Mannequin and straining resumed his position. He could do this!

The Mannequin lunged and grunting Atemu smacked, slashed, at the incoming arm of the doll with the trident tip of the Lance. The doll shambled back, thrown over itself, and struggling rickety to its flat feet Atemu saw the plastic like flesh of the arm was splintered in cracks.

"Yes!" Nephele hissed under his breath somewhere over Atemu's shoulder and, relieved beyond adulation, Atemu found himself grinning.

He _could_ do this.

The Lance warmed in his fingers, suddenly seemed more responsive, more alive, and resumed with a confidence in himself and in Jenzar Atemu felt his focus become less panicked. He had his speed back.

"Don't celebrate yet." Atreyu warned to Nephele and perplexed Atemu watched as, twisting its barely articulated head the Mannequin Prince regarded its splintered, shattered, arm.

The doll waved it and, underneath the plastic, Atemu saw something ripple through the cracks. Something more physical, more natural, found room to move in the cracks Atemu had made and curling the new limb shattered the plastic encasing it clean off by curling at the elbow.

"Good lord!" Yusei reeled and Atemu felt his stomach drop coldly.

The arm which bulked free of the plastic coating was double the size of the original and appeared to belong to an entirely different entity. It was massive, muscled, under a pelt of white hair like the bulking arm of a great ivory Gorilla. Its fingers bare of hair were big, black, taken to talons at their tips and disgusted Atemu could not fathom how the Mannequin stayed upright with the weight distribution.

The Mannequin leant more into the weight of that side, cartoonish, but lunging the doll bought down its beastly arm. Atemu threw himself, lunging away as the fist crunched the rock which had just been beneath his feet. Its speed hadn't decreased at the increase in size but apparently the doll's strength had at least in that arm. Damn!

Atemu parried, keeping his feet, trying to reaccustom himself to the movement of the beast. The lightness of the Lance gave him time now to think. Apparently stripping at the Mannequin's limbs would do him no good. If anything it had made the creature more dangerous. Atemu needed to destroy it somehow. He needed to look beyond those monstrous appearances to find some fatalistic weak point to exploit but were to hit?

In a second of reflection, reflexivity, the beast's fist collided with Atemu and as the armour shattered, flung back, he found himself crying out in pain. Atemu's back hit the stone, rolled, but he refused to let go of the Lance squeezing it between his fingers desperately as his life line while the shattered armour of his chest plate crackled inward cutting at his torso. It hurt, intensely, and rolling onto his arms and legs Atemu found himself unable to hold back the strained grunt lodged in his throat.

His eyes found Atreyu but the Faen stood relatively unmoved. Apathetic? Surrendered? Atemu's heart twisted.

_No, Atreyu won't cry for us,_ a knowing voice rebutted stubbornly proud in Atemu's head. _He won't look weak before the Seers. He won't look scared for us because, if he does, it implies he doesn't think we can win_.

Wait…

That wasn't Yami's voice…

Atemu had almost thought it was for a second and, horrified, he had no time to run from the next attack of the Mannequin forced instead to roll from the slam of its fist into the rock. Pushing himself to his feet he ran to try and create some distance between himself and it as his mind reeled. He spun to keep the creature in his sights and mentally railing found his insides shouting:

_Jenzar!? How?_

_Your guess is as good as mine! _The dumbfounded baritone sung back to Atemu's amazement as if some bizarre layer of Yami's voice inside his head.

The vessel which contained Jenzar's soul had begun to glow brighter in Cassidia's hand but relatively unnoticed and the Lance, still thumping, was suddenly growing warm and smooth as flesh to the fingertips of Atemu's gloved hands. Jenzar's mind was in contact with his. Was this what Atreyu had anticipated? The Champion didn't sound vengeful nor, actually, did he sound particularly intimidating to Atemu. Handsome? Yes, imposing? Not really. At least not in the way the Reaper had imagined his voice to be.

The Mannequin lunged.

_Chest! Chest!_ Jenzar's voice ordered in his head as Atemu scrambled away from the attack. _Most life forms keep their centre of power in the biggest section of the body because there's more padding! Go for the chest!_

"Right!" Atemu floundered under his breath and, across the field, Atreyu blinked curiously as the Reaper began to speak to himself panic drawing his own voice out of his throat thoughtlessly.

The Mannequin lashed for him, charging, and steading himself between his feet Atemu forced himself to lunge forward and drive the double tip of the Lance through the plastic of the dolls' chest. The initial shell cracked and the Lance slid into solid, soft, flesh underneath. The beast stopped, leaning into Atemu's weight, shaking and kicking at its chest, drawing his leg up, Atemu wrenched the Lance free to stagger back carefully.

_Good one!_ Jenzar cheered jovially in his head with almost boyish relief.

The beast shook, like a broken clockwork toy stuck on the spot, and as its chest plastic cracked the veins extended to its second arm, it's legs, breaking…

_Uh-oh… _Jenzar piped quietly between Atemu's temples.

The plastic cracked, flew off the beast, and revealed a matching set of limbs. It's torso expanded three fold, its legs doubled, it seemed to lurch on its legs and arms like a Gorilla and if it had stood tall Atemu was sure it would've been a solid nine feet.

"No!" He panicked.

_Sorry! Sorry!_Jenzar floundered.

"That made it worse!" Atemu swore angrily forced to run as the beast came for him throwing both hands locked above its head and smacking them down furiously.

_You try giving instructions from a bottle! _The Champion shot back defensively. There was the King's roar Atemu had been expecting but even now the tone was tame and half apologetic in its haplessness.

Atemu had no time to stop. The beast seemed faster now, impossibly so, unrestricted by the plastic of its doll case body and unable to stop moving he was beginning to pant under the assaults of the Mannequin Prince. What bright ideas would the Champion have now?

_Cut its head off! _Jenzar called suddenly as the idea came bursting to him.

_Oh yes because your last plan went so well! _Atemu hollered at their mental circus.

_Just lob its freaking head off! _The Champion ordered as frenzied, as panicked, as Atemu.

"Damn it!" Atemu spat, rounding back to stab blindly at the beast.

_Cut! __**Cut!**__ Not stab! No stab! _Jenzar screamed inside him as the Lance shattered the diminished nearly human face of the Mannequin doll.

"No!" Atreyu moaned, frustrated, as the plastic shattered free.

_What he said!_ Jenzar panicked almost angry, on the bridge of parental concern and hapless frustration as he tried to guide Atemu.

The Mannequin's true head was hideous; a long snout like shape with sagging, unnaturally full and slobbering lips that hung limply open round a tightly set jaw of sharp teeth. Each razor fang looked about the size of Atemu's fingers and while it had no eyes it only added to the doggish ungodly nature of the monstrosity.

_Oh dear_… Jenzar murmured. _This is bad_…

_Any more bright ideas genius?_ Atemu snapped, backing up, heart palpating as the Mannequin now freshly exposed sniffed the air like a lumbering dog.

_Um…Thinking…?_ The Champion answered.

_Thinking? What am I supposed to do while you're thinking?! _

_Staying alive would be a good start! _Jenzar supposed, no longer angry, rather more empathic once again with their disaster as if he too might be destroyed with Atemu's failure.

The beast charged. Atemu barely saw it move. It was fatally fast now it was free of its binds and unable to do much more than block he found himself battered across the plateau. His companions hissed and Drea or Nephele even seemed to squeak as the Mannequin Prince sent Atemu sailing into the far wall shattering the back plate of his armour. Atreyu held his ground, tense and though increasingly distraught kept himself placated while the Seers cackled.

"Not doing too well is he?" Cassidia teased. "Want to swap him out for a substitute? Maybe a Champion who actually knows how to use that thing?"

"He'll win," Atreyu concluded stubbornly, unyieldingly poised.

Atemu, for his part, could only focus on breathing and, at all costs, keeping hold of the Lance. Without the Lance of Lazarus he would be utterly helpless. He had no magic strong enough to batter this monster back and the Lance, while he was struggling to unlock enough power to defeat the Mannequin with it, still healed his minor wounds. Even then however there was only so much the Lance could seem to do about his injuries, about the deep bruising, and as the beast came down on him again Atemu had no time to hobble up instead forced to roll.

He was sluggish now, bruised and battered and beaten, barely evading the worst of the blows hobbling half onto his feet. The Mannequin flung him back down. The back of Atemu's skull rattled against the stone and made his head spin. The beast's hands and feet straddled over him and lunging with its mouth, those great teeth, the Mannequin tried to _eat_ him.

Atemu threw his arms up taunt, away from himself, with the Lance between his palms hooking in across the beast's mouth to hold its gnashing teeth at bay like the bit of a bridle. The effort with which it bore down on him an attempt snap was feral and with his body aching Atemu wasn't sure how much longer he could hold it off.

_Why won't the emergency mode work?_ He panicked, gritting his teeth. _I'm going to die here!_

_The Lance doesn't care if I die and it doesn't care if you die_, Jenzar rued apologetically, _I'm sorry Atemu but it won't unlock its potential for our sake. It doesn't work like that. Even a Champion has to accept their defeat sometimes_.

_Tell me how to use it!_

It's not something I can tell you how to do.

_Atreyu's counting on me!_ He insisted. _I can't lose!_

_If Trey thinks you can win then you __can__._ Jenzar assured sincerely.

Atemu wasn't so sure. Jenzar trusted Atreyu entirely, it was so apparent with the Champion's tone ringing in his ears, but Atemu wondered if Atreyu had too much faith in himself. Had the Faen miscalculated? Atemu couldn't do this! He didn't have enough magic to back up the Lance, didn't have enough experience to know what to do, frankly didn't have enough of anything to save them. Atreyu would be trapped here with Jenzar, Atemu would be obliterated by this dreadful thing and then their companions would suffer.

Earth, home, was a distant idea as he tried insistently to keep the beast off him. It was leaning in closer and Atemu's elbows were faltering under the pressure. He was about to lose.

What if Amar couldn't get them all out? What if? What if? It compounded inside him, running on repeat, and he could see it as the beast's teeth almost grazed his nose and his forearms trembled. He couldn't see Yami's life flashing over him, rather, he could see them dying: Atreyu gone, Amar and Sev gone, Timaeus destroyed, the Reapers slaughtered, Cobalt massacred, Yusei cut down and Jenzar's children evaporated. With them there would be the death of order, of family, of innate human _goodness _and righteousness in so many brisk layers because of Atemu's short comings. They had faith in him. Atreyu had faith in him, Atreyu and Yugi, who _loved_ him and who would be imprisoned on one side of the Veil and die on the other.

If Atemu could be destroyed for them he would. If he could ruin his soul irreparably to save them here he would. These were people he loved, Yami loved, and more than the fear of losing his own immortality or afterlife was the fear of these souls loosing theirs. To destroy the bodies Amar, Atreyu and those the others had journeyed from would do nothing to their souls but to destroy their souls here was to destroy them forever. It was an unfathomable idea and Atemu couldn't stand it. He couldn't stand the thought of these people, good people, being obliterated.

Atreyu was… Atreyu _loved _him. Atemu had that. Yami had that. He'd die for that. For Atreyu to be destroyed and Yugi removed from the lives of their friends back home was to kill a star. Yugi never gave up. Yugi could live and fight where Atemu would surrender and fail. Yugi could keep going, with or without Atemu or Jenzar, for all of time if he had to. He would protect these people and the people of Earth in a way Atemu never would. Atemu would die for Yugi, for Atreyu, if only he could take this sorry piece of hell down with him.

The Lance thrummed and between Atemu's fingers began to glow.

The Reaper felt a surge of confusion followed immediately by a sense of valiant victory that came bursting from Jenzar in support. The Lance grew brighter, making Atemu wince and as it glowed the Mannequin suddenly shrieked, roaring, and lurched back to fondle its burnt, withered, gums in agony. To Atemu the Lance did not burn, not him anyway, and just as he considered in that second he might be able to defeat the Mannequin Prince the Lance became intangible.

Jenzar's mind pulled away from his at the loss of contact and Atemu grasped after the Lance but the crimson light had already shot up towards the canopy roof of the nest zooming up almost out of view like a firecracker. There was an inhale between them, the Mannequin seemed lost, and waiting on his hands and knees Atemu was rocked back in the pulse that suddenly shot out like a shockwave from the ceiling down.

The Seers quietened, Atemu's companions hushed, and above them all the crimson ball of light began unfolding, stretching, quadrupling till coils of red had unfurled to writhe seething over their heads. Long, snake like, loops of crimson tangled and curled round towards them, sinking its attention down to the nesting floor, and as the light faded the image of the reformed Lance was now strikingly clear to Atemu, Atreyu and every terrified Seer in the nest.

"Slifer!" Morphis cried in knowing amazement.

"My God…" Atemu mumbled in awe.

Sure enough, at his sacrifice or his summons, the Lance had revealed its emergency form. A monolithic titan of a dragon, coiled brilliantly vermillion, Chinese almost in style and double jawed.

Cassidia dropped the jar containing Jenzar, ruined jaw falling into stutters and turning to make an order of her panicked populace Slifer split open his upper jaw and let loose the wrath of an eternity upon her.

The sound the dragon made rattled the entire nest, drove everything from Atemu's eardrums with thunderous clash, and the raw white light of the blast eradicated everything as it penetrated the skin of his eyelids. Only at the frayed edges of the blast, as the thunder of the roar receded, could Atemu make out the fading screeches of the Seers.

* * *

Atemu's arms dropped, ears ringing, as the light faded to reveal what was left of the world. The walls of the nest seemed molten, glowing volcanically, and as Atemu fumbled he could find neither head nor tail nor remnant of any Seer Queen or Mannequin Prince or otherwise. Atreyu was utterly unblemished and behind him their companions cloistered round Amar were untouched. The Lance, in its ultimate mode as Slifer had cloistered them utterly against its own righteous vengeance.

A glance passed between them in the desolation of the nest, a sense, that they were fatally alone. Everything that had been under Cassidia's control, including the Queen herself, was gone. If these Seers regenerated it would take centuries for their traces to clump together and reform. Cassidia would probably never piece herself back together in any significant fashion to pose a threat or even to remember how.

They'd won.

Morphis was the first to give a strangled little cheer and, laughing, Timaeus walloped the back of Yusei's shoulders with one firm hand. Nephele and Drea were still clutched together tensely and, bouncing, Nephele cooed. Amar, Sev and Atreyu passed between each other the most restrained little sighs of relief and pivoting Atreyu's gaze settled on Atemu sprawled upon the stone. The Faen glittered with a soft contented affection and sitting back on his knees Atemu took in that precious smile. Atreyu had such faith in him.

He wanted to speak but the Lance of Lazarus, the dragon, which had crumbled the nest suddenly retracted into crimson light. Lightning crackled where the red and white light met and at once something entirely new sparkled into Atreyu's eyes which entirely destroyed all focus. The attention of the room shifted, spun, and Atreyu _ran_.

The Faen's armour all but evaporated as he moved, nearly fevered, leaving him suddenly barefoot once more and as the condensed light pulled into a nexus Atemu caught sight of it: the man who emerged where the lightning struck stone.

"_JENZ!_"

Atreyu's arms fastened round his neck as he collided with the new manifestation and the fearsome visage Atemu acquainted himself with in the faded light hefted the Faen off his feet to spin them effortlessly. As Atemu forced his weight into his palms, resting on his arms, he could finally take in the whole picture: the magnificent black armour, tight honey arms, dark glyphic tattoo, the vicious crimson eyes, that proud figure which was lean, imposing and handsome …

"_Trey._" Jenzar Fraveous purred in a solemn, reverent, baritone as he tilted his face down to the Faen bundled squeezed up against him and smiled. "Oh my only one…"

"Jenz," Atreyu seemed to swoon awed, clutching tighter as Jenzar's hand ran over his cheek and purring the Faen turned into it like a cat letting the Champion cradle his face and kiss his temple. "It's really you."

The power emanating from the pair of them seemed to interlock at the acknowledgement into one distinct_ incredible_ pulse and Atemu had never felt something so powerful in all his time in the Reaper Core. It was transfixing. Atreyu, caught between a beaming smile and frantic tears, was radiating brilliantly with a diamond clarity not seen, Atemu guessed, for four centuries. Jenzar himself carried such stunning imposition in this form he seemed to be at least seven foot tall and rather than jealous or sorrowful Atemu was rendered too bemused to react. That something, someone, worthy of Atreyu's splendour could be real was entirely perplexing. Yet they matched.

Jenzar Fraveous was all there finally magnificent, real, and free to be resurrected. All hail the king as they would say Atemu thought to himself with a lazy, naively unfretted, happiness. Atreyu had plainly never been happier and to see that was payment enough for Atemu he supposed.

"That," Jenzar preface with a laughing smile as he glanced to Atemu still holding Atreyu so tight the Faen's toes did not brush the ground, "was _amazing_. You got it! That's what it means to be Champion! Not to know you'll win no matter but the circumstance but to keep fighting even in the face of certain defeat! Not for pride, glory or even you own life but sincerely and solely for the people you love. It takes real intention, real sacrifice, to make Slifer appear like he did for you."

"I…" in the face of such innocently compassionate eloquence Atemu was not sure how to respond. Jenzar meant every word, it showed in the way of his face, and he meant it without an ounce of arrogance, jealousy or sarcasm. It didn't rankle Atemu rather he found the Champion's smile was too contagious to turn down. "Thank you for helping me."

"Lot of help I was!" Jenzar laughed. "Though, Love, that has to be one of your most suicidal gambles. Didn't think the stakes were high enough?"

"Oh hush," Atreyu snorted but couldn't contain his smile, "I played that so safe I'm bor-"

Jenzar's form flickered harshly his outline blurring like static over an old TV screen and Atreyu grasped his biceps in a tense, startled, panic.

"What's happening?" He demanded.

The Champion resettled into his form, blinking and gathering himself found the startled Faen in his arms.

"_Shh_," Jenzar ordered pressing the Faen's cheek back against his shoulder as he kissed the top of his head, "I'm alright Love. Listen: Cassidia impersonated you, made me think you were wounded, and she fooled me just long enough for the Seers to attack. It was a trap. In the battle to take me prisoner and remove the Lance from me they damaged me."

"Then your core…" Atreyu moaned, fingers curling round a shoulder plate. "Will you…?"

"My core's all here," he promised calmly, "but they ripped off my astral body and the first few layers of my soul. That's all. With any luck there's still time in which I can find the skin they tore off before it dies for want of power to sustain it."

"A part of you…?" The Faen mumbled slowly to himself. An epiphany appeared to manifest to Atreyu and head darting up from where it had lulled against Jenzar to meet the Champion's eyes sharply he declared: "Yes I know! _Of course!_It escaped to Sanctuary. It hid there with Third Star. I think she gave it enough power to go looking for you and I. I think it manage to reincarnate on Earth with what little it had."

"You're sure?" Jenzar tensed.

"Aye, aye," Atreyu nodded frantically a beaming joy spreading across him. "I'm almost certain! It's on Earth! I can take you to it!"

"Then I'll have you back in my arms properly within hours," the Champion decided. "How long till morning?"

"Not long now," the Faen cooed, "we can still make it there before dawn."

"Then the others-" Jenzar started round to Amar but kicking up the Lance of Lazarus from where it had fallen clattering and tossing it the redheaded Champion flung it into Jenzar's responsive hand.

"You can thank us later." Amar laughed weakly and Atemu thought that, perhaps, the redhead was on the cusp of relieved tears. "There's not a moment to spare. Go get yourself a body and sew your soul back together so I can scold you tonight!"

"Aye Sir!" Jenzar laughed smile splendid, handsome, as he turned back to Atreyu and seemed to spot Atemu. "_Thank you_. I'll repay you for this. You have my word."

Atemu unable to speak under the weight of that glorious, humble, sincerity coupled within Jenzar managed only to shake his head.

"Never mind," he rasped. "It was well worth it."

"Soon Atemu," Atreyu laughed strangely. "I'll see you when we get home. You were incredible."

"Thank you…?" He blinked.

"Godspeed," Seviticus called chuckling. "Let's hope Atreyu can keep you out of trouble till your feet are back on solid ground. We'll make sure everyone else gets home safe."

"We can only hope," Jenzar chuckled, "I'll be home tonight to thank you all properly. So help me, I will be back in the Hive again tonight, be safe!"

Beside him Atemu felt Yusei and Morphis kneel to help him back to his feet and as they leant towards him, in a glimmering flash, Atreyu and Jenzar were gone entirely like a vanishing nova.

"Good job," Yusei thrust his hand out, and taking it Atemu couldn't help but smile at the boy's stiff demeanour. Unshakable Yusei was.

"Thank-" Atemu couldn't finish as, unable to wait any longer, Morphis drew the other Specialist into a bear hug. "M-Morph?"

"I can't thank you enough!" Morphis blabbered. "You can't imagine how grateful our family will always be to you!"

"Oh stop fussing over him Morph," Drea snorted, shoving the Knight aside to move forward himself for a word but ducking under both of them Nephele was too quick to throw his arms round Atemu's neck. "Oh for heaven's sake! The bloody pair of you are as bad as each other!"

Nephele peppered Atemu's cheek with kisses and, chuckling, Atemu squeezed him closer. He had never felt like he had siblings but Yami's big brother complex for Joey Wheeler seemed to have crept into Atemu.

"Alright, alright," Sev chuckled, "fantastic work Atemu. I was worried for you for a moment there but you held yourself with valour."

"Truly impressive," Timaeus assured over the green Champion but made no motion to touch Atemu.

"I think we can all agree Atemu Pheramora is thoroughly forgiven and adored." Amar decided grasping Atemu's shoulder as he slipped between Yusei and the Specialist smoothly. "I think we can also agree everyone else held themselves very well also. Now, how about we get all of you home to rest? I think we deserve it. We can celebrate tomorrow once Atreyu and Jenzar return."

"You'll have to pry Morph and Neph off Atemu at this rate." Drea snorted.

"Don't I get an embrace from you as well?" Atemu teased. "It would be a shame not to have a full set of rewards from Jenzar and Atreyu's children."

Drea coloured, seemed taken aback and laughed again in that way he appeared to when someone threw him a loop unexpectedly. Shaking his head slipped passed Nephele into the tight space of bodies amassed around Atemu and lay himself into the Specialist's chest. Atemu held him firmly. Drea may have been the odd one out of the trinity but he was still, beneath his swagger, a very sweet young man and Atemu could be consoled for what they seemed to share in unreciprocated love.

"If you want," Drea whispered gently into his ear, "my offer still stands. I wouldn't mind your company for a while. Now Atreyu and Jenzar are back together neither of us can separate them."

"Who would really want to destroy something like that?" Atemu sighed but found himself giving the Sequester a secret little glimmer of compassion in his eyes. "I'll think about it."

"You're a pretty impressive Specialist," Drea winked patting his cheek teasingly, all that sass creeping back as the dark little Sequester regained his face. "No wonder you got Trey all wet for you. I haven't ever seen him look at someone, except my father, the way he looked at you before the fight."

"I'm no Jenzar Fraveous," Atemu shrugged, "but I think I'm pretty damn decent."

"Long as you know." Drea grinned.

"Hey, Amar," Atemu supposed over Drea's shoulder as his hands fell easily to the Sequester's waist, "did Cobalt and the general Reapers fair alright?"

"Didn't lose anyone," Amar promised. "We have ourselves a clear, decisive, victory tonight. Let me tell you Atemu there is _nothing _I like more than knowing I can go home and tell Denn that everyone made it out."

* * *

Yami woke, not softly, but in a lurch.

His phase out should've gone smoothly and found him languid in his body but it was as if Yami had hit the mattress, been smacked, and winded he sprung at the waist to find his hands. His heart pounded, marathon fast, in his chest and as Yami inhaled he knew something unnatural was happening.

The whole world spun instantaneously.

Yami wrenched, hand grasping his mouth, and kicking at the blankets found it very hard to untangle himself clumsily from the bedding. He shook, he trembled, his heart throbbed in his ears and half crawling, stumbling, Yami found himself falling.

He hit the carpet hard. Bones rattling, every limb quaking uncontrollably, and unable to find his balance any better was hopeless to try and find his feet. He crawled, dragged, shaking still on his hands and knees and doubling in on himself found the uncontrollable urge to vomit too immense with hold. He struggled against it, hacked to cough splattering chunks of black, gelatinous, inky fluid over the cream carpet.

Compelled by stupid instinct, inbuilt cleanliness from years in his culture, Yami tried again to make it to his feet and shamble into the bathroom. His fingers twisted in the gunk as he tried and stumbling upright he only made it another step or two before another tight wave of black fluid was escaping in dying hacks that left him unable to breathe. It stained his shirt, hit the carpet, and wrenching up air Yami scrambled to escape the next wave.

How he managed with his body failing, the world spinning, his temples throbbing and his heart pounding with gunshots as nausea ripped through him would be a mystery but somehow his hands found the toilet seat and, barely able to keep himself on his hands and knees in the spasms, Yami finally found himself gagging real substance into the bowl.

It seemed to go on forever, wrenching and reeling, trying to struggle for breath through the vomit as it came over him in sequences. His knuckles tightened against the seat, he was sure he was crying, and in the bile and the coppery slick taste of blood Yami prayed for it all to just stop. He was sure he must be dying. Something was wrong. So wrong.

The blood, the black gunk, the pus and the nothingness that was strung out from him didn't seem humanly possible. Where did it come from? Yami had never experienced this, never in all his late nights, felt this world ending kind of horrible queasiness that smacked him about as if it was drowning him. He was sure he was vomiting a lifetime of disgust. Inner cancers and old stalely scabbed wounds all seemed to be escaping. It was as if every vile miasma inside him was jumping board like rats from a sinking ship to make way for something else that shot through him like a lightning bolt.

It stopped. Just when Yami had given up hope it would ever end. The nausea however was the only thing that withdrew, very sharply, as if it had been cauterized at the source. Something seemed to have cut the head from some terrible medusa within Yami and falling back into the wall he shook with every breath racking through him. He palpated to fill his lungs with new air, shaking, and as he curled his face into his knees he could hear nothing else but his throbbing heart pounding relentlessly in his ears.

Slowly…

Oh so slowly…

_Breathe,_ he ordered himself, _breathe_…

Sluggishly but surely the spasms faded till his limbs softened once again with renewed self-control. His mind slowed till sleepiness and exhaustion fell back in a curtaining uncertainly. His heart crept gently, ebbing, and easing till it was finally steadied.

The exhaustion came naturally then, heavy, but a cool breeze trickled up in his gut just as the dust seemed to have fallen languidly into place like centuries of muck replacing itself after the Pharaoh's tomb was freshly invaded.

The pulse of his steady heart thrummed inside his chest. With every drum beat of his beating heart the thrum, the pulse, of some great cold light expanded and grew inside. Freshness, lightness, cool and new and _amazing_ seeped slowly from the cavity of his chest. It escaped through his shoulders and Yami felt them ease. It ran through his thighs and Yami relaxed them, throwing his head back into the wall slowly his spin seemed to rebuild taller.

Was this…his core…?

The cool was soothing after the queasiness. That post vomit sense of immediate swift relief. It stretched to his toes, his fingers, tingled in every single pore of his living body.

He closed his eyes. He felt gently compelled to in the natural way of a dying animal but Yami knew he wasn't dying most acutely in that second. Energy, life, radiance brilliant and pure and increasingly warm _crimson_ was flooding him. Wait… could…?

Yami felt himself reposed, reclined comfortably, the greatness of the glory that rang out like heaven's choirs seeming to push at the bounds of his skin. He accepted it. It felt good. He felt regenerated.

It was nearly as if before his very eyes life was returning to a withered corpse; a life that returned plumpness to his skin and light to his eyes. His heart beat and with every, single, thump he felt more of it rebuild his insides. He could've been convinced every cell within him was resuming its original, cleansed, form and with it the systems of his body may as well have started running backwards, running the right way, for the first time in all his life.

He was unclogged, unfettered, utterly unbound and Yami knew in that second he was finally, perfectly, _himself_. His_ real_ self.

There was a tide, something coming next, and Yami could see it rising towards him, rushing, like a child on the shore watching the crest of a wave coming in knowing it was about to battering, whoosh, through him. He saw it, he knew it almost before it hit, and unafraid he welcomed it.

It hit.

He remembered _everything_.

Everything that had ever happened came crashing down on him simultaneously and whacking him off his feet Yami knew the entire course of universal history in an instant.

It all made divine, puzzle pieces in place, sense. Like God had snapped his fingers Yami suddenly understood.

It was _him_.

The thin, evaporating, line that had sat between he and Atemu was eradicated like wind tossing up ash and immediately he _was_ Jenzar. There was no divide. They were the same down to the morsels. They infused, invading every inch of each other, energy suffusing into every cell and Yami was finally, completely, wholly_ himself_.

His mind, his heart, had been ready for this but his core had been missing and now that he and Jenzar were one, now he was him again, now he was Jenzar the flood gates had been unleashed.

He saw it: Sanctuary. Glorious, magnificent, Sanctuary. The crystal topper to the whole universe as far as Jenzar's fickle, adoring, heart was concerned. The Christians could have their Heaven, the Hindu souls their Nirvana, for Jenzar there was only Sanctuary where he, for what had been a short eternity, had experienced the greatest, most innocent, bliss. The Hive was dull by comparison. Homely but bland and amongst his brothers because it's image was poisoned by the golden key he possessed to Sanctuary. The place Jenzar always longed to return to.

He remembered that city was alive. Third Star, the Faens, had built it and infused it and it changed every day, every second, a living organism they had borne like their first child. Trees sprung up and shrunk back springing birds of paradise one day and diamonds the next. The Faens were infused with creativity, never satisfied, never content, but always happy. They wanted, every second, to show the bemused Champions who lulled with them how much they loved them by always adding to their dream paradise. So every day Jenzar woke to something new, something fresh and unseen.

They ate when they were hungry, slept when they were tired and made love where ever they fell. There was no privacy, no possessions, they were a unit in a mass family network dictated and ruled solely by love. There was no order, no rules, because they needed none. They were inbuilt into them in natural kindness. They were never mad, never lonely, never embarrassed.

Faens showed every inch of themselves if they were struck by it. Clothes were for fun not necessity or survival then and their Champions would make love to them, unable to resist, at any given second. They had never been ashamed, never cared, Jenzar had never understood why they should have been. The Faens worshiped love in all its manifestations. Every bit of it was magnificent to them however it appeared either as wishing stone trees or as two bodies intertwining.

Vegas Helldreem, Seviticus Prodious' Faen, had filled every window with stained glass on a whim. Jenzar remembered Vegas, wheat blonde hair and sunset russet orange eyes round a dazzling smile. Vegas was so light Seviticus could throw him five feet in the air and catch him. Vegas had been the first one to figure out how to make fireworks and had been the favourite of the day for it.

They'd wanted a ball but Atreyu, Denn-Elec and half a dozen others had wanted to repaint the ceiling in the ballroom in the hours before. They had. Till the entire white ceiling was an amassed cluster of painted, precise, butterflies whose wings truly fluttered overhead in their canopy. They'd spent so long playing at it, making it, that Denn-Elec and Atreyu had not bothered washing, had not cared, and Jenzar had swept a paint splattered Atreyu up into his arms to dance. The Faens had been so exerted from their painting that the party quickly turned to dinner and by the end of the night they had all fallen asleep at their places along the grand table.

They were always laughing, always touching, always kissing. He remembered his dear friend Amar and remembered those secret smiles they gave each other. He remembered Amar hoisting Denn-Elec onto his back. Remembered Denn-Elec's fluttering blue hair and chocolaty eyes. Remembered the glass beads Denn was drenched with. Remembered how the Faen had clung to redheaded, green-eyed, Amar and how the Champion had swooned with adoration. Jenzar remembered waking with his head in Amar's lap, Denn-Elec rubbing his face into Jenzar's side as they sprawled on the tiles. Jenzar remembered looking up to see Atreyu with his head on Amar's shoulder and his arm round the redhead's chest and feeling no jealousy but instead perfect happiness.

They used to sing. Not words just a long chanting procession of sounds that filled the walls of Sanctuary at all hours of the day and night. It had been a literal, sounded, expression of contentment when the soul was too overflowing to contain it. Jenzar remembered that was what they danced to. He remembered their costumes, thrown together, remembered Denn-Elec with his dove wings and knew Atreyu didn't like the style. He'd tried his hand once, clumsily, at shaping and making butterfly wings for Atreyu. Those were his Faen's favourite wings, always throughout all of time, and Atreyu had laughed and smiled at the silly pair Jenzar had made for him and refused stubbornly to take them off.

He remembered exploring every star, their adventurers, finding beaches and worlds and creatures in a vast new universe.

Jenzar remembered summoning the Lance of Lazarus for the first time. Remembered the ripple of new, unexperienced, emotions when they stormed Atlantis and Jenzar had become a Champion, an upstart, a hero to his own bemusement. He remembered how Timaeus had lunged to strike them, remember suddenly holding the Lance out of nothingness and swiping had torn at the Guardian's face. He remembered the feeling, the anger, and the bloodlust that came with a fierce protectiveness. _No one_ hurt his Faen, no one threatened Atreyu, and no one hurt what was so truly love. He remembered promising, for all of time, to keep it that way.

He remembered the first time they cried. He recalled leaving Sanctuary. Saw the last revel and how every Faen and Champion had laughing and sobbing come closer than any force in the universe could've deemed possible. He remembered falling asleep in his home for the last time desperately pressed with Amar, Denn-Elec and Atreyu: his first family.

He remembered learning to make love in a new way. In their second life when everything was strange and different. He remembered Atreyu in his lap on a windowsill, remembered the Faen's toes touching the wood grain of the floor, thrusting and making life for the first time.

He could see Morphis. That perfect looking glass which showed him from the outside how beautifully, consuming, Atreyu loved. He remembered the Faen kissing the child, _their_ child, remembered the heart breaking wonder of that ripe fruit they had made. All the loving trepidation and envy for his perfect, spell binding, boy. Their first born son… Jenzar remembered knowing him yet being so foreign to Morphis. He had envied how sweetly, completely, the child could love Atreyu and felt clumsy. He remembered how Morphis was always a little amazed by Jenzar himself, awed and envious of how his father could protect them and how Jenzar's power engulfed and dwarfed Morphis'. He remembered adoring that boy. He remembered pulling him into his lap when Morphis found the courage to ask for Jenzar and rubbing their noses and foreheads together. Seeing the child that was a piece of both of them, a soul provided with a body by them, perfect.

He remembered Drea at once; the child, the little Sequester, who was a foreign and strange being. He was different type of soul to the three of them. He remembered Drea always with his arms outstretched, always reaching, always climbing. Jenzar remembered throwing the child above his head with his arms outstretched and giving Drea his smile, which the child deserved, and seeing Drea glow with happiness.

He remembered Nephele so suddenly. He was their thoughtful, shy, little Timer who wanted to hold Morphis' hand and would cry when he couldn't get up into Jenzar's arms. Jenzar remembered how Drea and Nephele would, sharing his lap, consent only to share him with each other. He remembered the soft, adoring, envy Atreyu flickered for them. Jenzar remembered these three, pristine, little lives who were their first children and who had been to them, though they loved them, Oedipus and Electra as children always were to their parents.

Jenzar remembered the first time Atreyu died. He recalled the agonising horror of every tiny second of watching Atreyu leave him. Remember the Faen's utter anguished terror of the unknown. Remembered thinking he could never bear it. Remembered knowing that he would never be able to leave Atreyu or stop loving him. Knowing, certain, that this pain he had felt when Atreyu had died for the first time was the strength of their bond. Their love had buried, intruded, upon his very soul and without Atreyu there was no Jenzar.

He saw lifetimes upon lifetimes in a whirr. Atreyu skewering him, pushing harsh steel through his torso, and then the Faen's body shattered into bloody broken pieces in a gladiator's arena. He remembered planets before Earth stretching back billions of years. Remembered a progression of lives watching Atreyu bloom and then wither in each progressive mortal disguise. Remembered singing in a mud hut by the filthy river. Jenzar remembered finding Morphis as a ringlet bearing girl named Claudia in one life and hiding in a house filled with dead bodies during a plague with Atreyu in another. Jenzar remembered burning alive and being crushed under chariots. Jenzar remembered Atreyu flinging himself from cliff tops into rocky shores and drinking poison. He remembered laboratories, mines, castles, space ships and mountains. Jenzar remembered their lives as men, women and children.

Jenzar could see temples and Pharaoh's chambers and pagan, demon, idols dancing under the moon. Jenzar remembered sinking between Atreyu's thighs, feeling the Faen purr beneath him, remembered always finding a way to be one again whatever form they took.

Jenzar remembered older than all of it, remembered older than time, the very beginning when there seemed to be only two things in all of existence: himself and the world.

That was the start of the first life.

He had sat in the grass, naked and dumbstruck, all alone but not knowing he was alone. He knew somehow, in a time before words or logic, that he had been part of something and now was independent of it. He had known the whole universe had once being one entity and was now scattered but not it in such a linear and human fashion more in primal instinctiveness.

Jenzar had sat there, bemused, and wandered idly along new river banks as the first eyes to ever see them. He had fallen asleep in the lavender, orchids and daffodils before they had names. He had been so small and unaware.

He remembered waking to something else. Something other than himself which was sentient in a way the flowers and the sky were not and which was staring giddily at him. That other thing, tiny and white and smiling, had crept a little closer with nature's curiosity and what Jenzar did not then recognise as Reapers' instinct flared him to caution. The other had reached out, touched his nose with its fingertip with a beaming, fascinated, smile and Jenzar had realized they were the same shape of being.

The touch had been soft, fresh, and warm in a ruddy mortal way. Jenzar had blinked, caution tossed aside, they crawled a little closer like kittens and suddenly in awash of fearlessness were all hands to grope at each other's warmth. It had been new. They had liked the feel of each other with their innocent hands and Jenzar had pulled the other thing to him and they had curled round each other to hide amongst the strands of grass.

They didn't know names then but their names had been the first thing spoken at the dawn of time when the universe was forged four billion years ago. Jenzar had found himself. Discovering he had a voice had said '_Jenzar Fraveous_' because it was true and right. It was a summary of his soul. Then his companion had opened his mouth and out came '_Atreyu Damestaire_' and as the other creature was the same as Jenzar yet not him it seemed right their words should be different. Still those first words, they hardly understood, were wondrous and just as Jenzar had thought very quickly his companion was the prettiest thing in this vast new universe he had thought his name was spectacular. '_Atreyu Damestaire_' had been the third and fourth words Jenzar had ever spoken and they had repeated their names to each other, cooing, under that frozen sun for what could've been hours or centuries as time did not yet exist.

They had found each other at the dawn of time and never since wanted for a second to be apart. Jenzar had never loved anything or anyone as he loved Atreyu. There was no contest. They were a complete entity fused together. Jenzar would never leave him, would never stop loving Atreyu, and never wanted to. The pain, the cruelty, the myriad of names and faces they'd assumed over four billion years had not yet had the power to erase or to withdraw what had been established by something beyond any understanding. They could never be parted. What Jenzar felt for Atreyu was just the deepest expression of what Yami felt for Yugi. Perfectly synchronised it was Yami understood instantly as the truest piece of love he had ever encountered.

That was how they had bared each other over four billion years. Not like an old married couple squabbling and growing ever sicker of each other from an initial perfect moment of coincidental meeting. No, Atreyu and Jenzar defined mortality's view of love with _real_ love. It was a timeless, universal, love which was out of anyone's power to break. This was the godlike mystery which made them possible, made them tick, and that no human being would ever truly fathom. This was absolute love, infinity love, and the Faens and their Champions were perhaps then the engineers and pioneers of love itself as a concept in the universe. They had the secret.

Yami's supposition that Jenzar may not have loved Yugi, Atreyu, enough to appreciate the Faen at once was rendered absurd. Yami's fickle human conception of love was void, petty, useless compared to this supernova of sensation which broke the laws of being and viciously resettled them. If this was the full ferocity of what Jenzar, of what _Yami_, felt then there wasn't a human being who had ever lived who was more perfectly, totally, loved than Yugi was. Human love lived on a blade of grass in the _universe_ of love the Faens and their Champions held.

* * *

1 Oedipus and Electra are Greek myths. Oedipus married his mother and Electra her father. Freud had this concept that children in a sort of subconscious way want their opposite sex parent and see their same sex parent as competition (not necessarily in a sexual way). I think all mums and dads will tell you that sometimes they're a little jealous of how their kids love their partner or how much their partners love their children. It's not a bad thing it just one of the weird ironies and mysteries of parenting I think.

That's all I think I need to say~

Hopefully you enjoyed this chapter. It's a frantic, messy, disaster but if I did anything right it got you all a bit frenzied.

See you next week!


	18. Rapture and Revelry

Hey Kiddos! Little bit more feel good for you this time~

* * *

Chapter 18: _Rapture and Revelry _

Yami had no difficulty then in finding his feet. A light had been switched on inside him. No, rather, a _furnace_ was ablaze inside his soul which had so recently been cold and wispy and unrealized. He was himself again! He held inside him a perplexing vastness of power that he could not believe could exist within a mortal form outside Yugi's.

_Oh Yugi… _

Yami laughed, everything was perfect, everything was perfect but somehow he wanted to hold all the thoughts inside him till he had hit the finish line. He was himself! He could barely repeat it enough. He knew himself at last! He was finally as he should be! He was really alive, salvation upon him, finally all he had been meant to become. He carried that aloft overhead like a banner and nothing seemed too grand.

He left his shoes forsaken, ripped his shirt over his head and pattering effortlessly down the stairs knew he could run a marathon. There was something miraculously bewitching about the sun, the real sun, upon his skin when he locked the front door behind him. He felt the rays of it, drew from it like Atreyu drew from the moon, and let it pluck warmly against his skin. He couldn't afford, couldn't care enough, to be embarrassed as his arse hit the driver's seat of the car in pj-pants, bare breasted and barefoot. He'd spent centuries as savages, primal, he'd spent lifetimes never knowing shoes and weathered almost black by the strip of the sun against the paint of his skin.

This was beautiful, simple,_ glorious._

Earth was still Earth as he knew it, Yami was sure, but somehow he felt as if he was seeing it differently. He'd missed four hundred years of Earth! Four hundred years of history! Part of him hiding in Sanctuary the rest captured by the Seers in some hell pit in Tartarus and even as Yami thought it, remembered it, he knew without doubt that had indeed been him. That aside still he'd missed four hundred years of watching their latest home planet grown, diversify and change as he always loved to watch it unfurl with the epic poetry of eternity visible to him.

Yami laughed, full, brimming back with everything. He was sure he could've done anything the world called upon him to do.

Time condensed, seemed shorter, his mind whirring scattershot through the diagnostics as it adjusted to this mass inclusion all at once. It didn't hurt. Rather it eased his burn because in seconds it appeared he was parking the car at his favourite place.

Yugi, by the intercession of kind, sweet, dexterous and teasingly dramatic fate, was on the front porch just escaping the doorway. Yami knew, sensed, with new eyes that Yugi, having realized it at the nest, had been rushing to come assist his transition back together. He'd underestimated the fastness with which the fractions of Yami's souls could fuse.

"Yami?" He laughed, perplexed a little, as the other bounded up the front steps and in a motion had the Faen in his arms.

Yami couldn't speak, couldn't bear to, it meant not kissing Yugi for a second. In a single motion, experience blooming to make him effortless, Yami had his arm round Yugi's back and under his knees. In a glimmer Yami had his lips burning, aching, against Yugi's as he carried him back through the forgotten open door.

He'd done this a _million_ times. Carried Atreyu over some threshold or another for whatever reason he could construe to find.

It smacked him then as he kicked the front door snapped shut behind them and dropped to his knees. That thought interlocked with Yugi's lips into his and a whole new, glorious, wave assaulted him. He lowered the Faen, never losing momentum, Yugi splayed over the carpet, Yami's arms captured round him, lips running against each other wetly. The kisses played quick, brief, teasingly damp as they were caught in the trap of joy that compelled them to stay prized against each other. Yami couldn't think of anything more creative, anything more skilled or romantic but to kiss and kiss and kiss with nothing else but lips on lips and cheeks and patches, corners, of Yugi's face.

His mind was too filled, far too fast, to focus on anything more. Yugi's thighs were round his hips as he rested his weight into his knees, barely risen off the carpet, and Yami held him so tightly that he almost thought he would hurt the beauty. Yugi's arms squeezed snug round his shoulders locking them together and Yami could feel the acutest detail of every perfect swooning sigh the Faen made as he desperately reached up into him.

Yugi's core was blooming, greater than Yami's but then only because it was unlimited, and Yami could taste it in the boy's kiss. This was his. All of this was only his. It had always been his. No one else would ever challenge him for Yugi, no one else would ever replace him in Yugi's eye, and no one could. Truth be told Yami could taste that not a force in the universe could part them anymore. Like stretching two ends of a rubber band apart, yet again, they had _twanged_ back together with the tension and momentum of polarising opposites.

This was _his_ Faen. He knew it, Yugi knew it, everything was back in place and every kiss hit him in a way Yami had not been able to feel it until now. Any of the kisses he'd dealt until now had been naïve with perfect love but they lacked this taste of locked eternity. He could feel the plushness of Yugi's lips, feel them bruise against each other hot and needy and desperate. He could see, behind the lids of his eyes, every kiss he had ever dealt this beautiful bundle sequestered safely in his arms. This was his to protect for all of time. That was his purpose: to be a Champion among Champions for this glory. This was heaven on Earth, the payment for his hard work maintaining order, this was the prize for a Champion so spectacular that even split in two he had been able to find his Faen, protect him, storm a nest and defeat a Seer Queen.

Oh, sweet paradise, Sanctuary was in Yugi's kiss as they tried to meld together. How many times, countless times, had he run his fingers through this hair and brought these lips to his? How many demons had they slain? How much good had they done? How many times had they made love?

He couldn't believe, couldn't dare realize, that his Yugi, his Atreyu, had spent four hundred cold years alone. Yami couldn't fathom that he had not been there to catch every swoon, every tear and defend every impasse. The concept that Atreyu had been unprotected, unloved, and had lived, breathed, and died without him was _agonising_. Never again. Never _ever_ again.

"Oh,_ I love you,_" Yami fumbled in a swoon, panting and clutching at the smaller body where they had fallen utterly uncaring.

"_Fuck_…" Yugi sniffed and he realized, at once, the strange truth of it.

"You're crying!" He warbled horrified, brushing at Yugi's tender cheek.

"Of course I am you idiot!" The Faen sobbed, trembling as he batted at his face past Yami's hand, laughing high through open lips. "You scared the shit out of me!"

"Oh baby," Yami laughed, "I'm so sorry. I'm so _so_ sorry. I'm never leaving you again."

"Don't you dare," Yugi warned sharply, "I'll kill you if you ever do that to me again."

"I'm so glad you're here." He fawned.

"I'm so glad it's _you._" The other confessed.

"I'm a retard," Yami laughed, fingers stroking deft and softly desperate over Yugi's face. "I didn't even know I was me. I'm an idiot! How did I not know my own name? Where the fuck did I get _Atemu?_"

"_Atreyu_ plus _Amar_," Yugi snorted lightly, "I think it was a cover name you used once."

"Yes!" He baulked in realization. "I remember!"

"Fuck, I should have realized," he groaned. "You pulled _Pheramora_out of your ass though!"

"I'm brain dead." Yami laughed happily. "Utterly ridiculous. Thank God you're safe."

He was compelled then by another rush of vicious, possessive, protectiveness and squeezing gathered Yugi tightly up against him.

"Thank God…" he repeated into thick locks.

"Okay," Yugi sighed, seeming to gather himself as he coughed. "First thing's first."

"Hmm?"

"We have to tell the other's we're okay," he shushed the Champion halfway through his complaint, "and then you have four hundred years of making me sleep in an empty bed to make up for. Deal?"

"In style." Yami grinned. "Oh! Hey!"

"Yeah?" Yugi supposed squirming out from underneath him onto his elbows.

"Tomorrow we go see your Grandfather." He decided.

"Hm?" The Faen blinked, "I don't know, there's a lot of other stuff to worry about first."

"Like what?" Yami snorted. "Anything that doesn't feel insignificant compared to this? I want to get you your family back. Right now. If I'd been here, if I hadn't written those books, you'd have a grandfather and I'll be fucked if you don't get him back."

"Fine," Yugi grinned, "but means you have to introduce me to your mother."

"Eh you've met my mother millions of times. I'm terrified." He snorted. "We'll be fine. I'm not going anywhere."

"_Ever_." The Faen stressed warily.

"Next life time you have to be a girl." Yami ordered, almost excitedly and laughing Yugi shook his head.

"_What?"_

"Because we're going to have a truckload of kids," he shrugged, "and you're going to have them in a clean, nice, safe hospital so help me God."

"Okay, okay," the Faen shushed at him good humouredly, "you are so over excited. Chill your burners. We'll get to the babies and the family reunions. Can we focus on calling Kaiba and Ryou for a sec?"

"Sure!" He chirped. "Can I do it?"

Yugi fell back laughing, an exasperated parent, and shaking his head sighed. For Yami, for Jenzar, today was Christmas. He was home, safe, Yugi was his and everything could finally, perfectly, go back to normal. His core was back, his power was vast and immense, and he had a chipper little lifetime to look forward to in Japan. Talk about a home run.

"Fine," the Faen surrendered. "Off ya get, let me get up, we're not fucking on the carpet."

"My care factor, it's tiny," Yami snorted and resisted the urge to remind Yugi they'd made love in worse (in the rain once, in the mud, after running from German mercenaries and that was just Earth! They'd conceived Morph once that way hadn't they? Or Drea? Yeah, Drea. They tended to conceive Morphis on window sills. God, he wanted their kids!). Instead, brain overheating, settled for helping the Faen back onto his feet.

"Steal my phone. Call Kaiba." Yugi ordered lazily, smiling, ever practical. Yami almost didn't like it. Yugi had been practical for all their time together here but Jenzar remembered a fanciful, freer, Atreyu. "I'll reset the salt line."

"No," he ordered tugging Yugi in closer, "don't worry about the salt line. Nothing's getting into this house."

"Yami-" He laughed.

"No, listen," the Champion insisted, curling his fingers round Yugi's hand and flaring, from the pits of his belly, a surge of that Heaven's fire that was suddenly inside him. "_Nothing_is getting into this house ever again."

Yugi shivered, faltering felt the surge and fumbling seemed a bit bemused.

"I…" he laughed weakly. "I almost forgot how strong your protection spells can be, the fortification vibe, I…_wow_…"

"Yeah," Yami purred, squeezing the stunned little fingers between his hands. "Champions' Magic. Remember? You can do a lot of incredible things I can't but even without salt lines or silver or protection boxes I can still make sure nothing sticks its nasty head inside our home unless it's _fucking _invited."

"I've been making due without it," Yugi murmured, softened a touch by the memory. That practicality, that weathered lonely strength he'd built up these past four centuries softened fractionally under a wisp of returning knowledge that Jenzar was back and would keep them safe like he was supposed to. "Guess it's just habit now…"

"I'm sorry," Yami repeated, bringing those fingers to his lips. "No more worrying about it. I'll take care of it." _I'll take care of you_.

"Okay," the Faen flourished, ever so subtly, under elegant self-restraint but the corners of a relieved, beaming, little smile escaped despite his best efforts to keep his expression assured. Yugi, Atreyu, lightened a little to let go of some of the responsibility of total control over the coven, of their supernatural life, to trust Jenzar back into his duties.

"I'll call Kaiba." He grinned.

Yugi only laughed and shoved him to the chunky Victorian side table to fetch up the Faen's phone and click through the contacts.

"Argh _what?_" Kaiba moaned. Apparently the hunt had exhausted him.

"Morning Sunshine!" Yami laughed boisterously.

"Yami? The fuck…?" Kaiba mumbled groggily. "You- _oh shit_. No. Don't fucking tell me…?"

"Okay then I won't," he cackled, "you have a fantastic fucking day!"

"Who the fuck makes you a Champion?" The Watcher groaned in horrified mulling. "What cruel fucking God decided that was a great part of the master plan?"

"Who cares! I'm a Champion!" Yami laughed. "I get to kick your ass next time you piss me off!"

"Jesus fucking Christ," Kaiba sighed. "Go fuck Yugi or something you need a chill pill you happy little shit. _Fuck_. Fucking typical you'd be Jenzar Fraveous you _retard._Get the hell off the phone!"

"Fuck you too," Yami cackled utterly ecstatic. "Bye Kaiba!"

"Mother fucking universe…" the Watcher sighed slamming down the phone.

Yugi had taken to laughing, languishing, against the wall behind Yami as the Champion soaked up his own enthusiasm hopelessly. The Faen seemed to be shaking his head. Yami was tempted for a moment to text Ryou his assurances to more quickly reach back for Yugi but then, struck but it, dialled the number.

"Hello?"

"Hey Ryou," Yami plucked, "it's me. Can I talk to Bakura for a second?"

"Um," Ryou murmured, "Hi! Sure?"

Yugi blinked and, pushing off the wall, sauntered to Yami to try and wrestle the phone from his hand. Laughing, the Reaper hooked an arm round the bemused Faen to hold him against his flank with Yugi's arms pinned against him by the wrap of Yami's arm. The Faen threw his head over the yoke of his shoulder to cast odd expressions and mouth to Yami: _what are you doing?_

"Hello?" Bakura snapped gruffly. "The hell you want lunchmeat?"

"Hey Bakura," Yami greeted mildly smooth and easily exuberant, "just wanted to let you know we solved Yugi's Champion problem. So the sheriff's back."

"And what," he snorted nastily, "the fuck do I care _Atemu?_"

Bakura was laughing at him on the interior, poor Atemu who would never have the Princess, but Yami knew exactly what it was he wanted to say before knowing he had intended to say it and it unfurled like venom so easily from his tongue he was sure Jenzar was sighing it.

"Jenzar now," Yami purred, "and you care, you traitorous little maggot, because if you ever come near my Faen again I will _destroy_ you. This is my home and my coven. So I would recommend we think very carefully about how we treat Yugi _and_Ryou from now on. We understand each other?"

"_Hah_," Bakura sneered, "enjoy your witch and stay the fuck away from my Ferry Man."

"I'd like to see a parasitic bottom feeder like you make me." He grinned through his baritone. "You have a nice day now."

He hit the end call button languidly, as Bakura began cursing him, with such utter disregard it empowered him. Yami could feel the powerful, immense, strength of Jenzar rippling within him totally. He had meant it and he knew he could carry it out with this incredible power he possessed. His possessiveness, his protectiveness, drove him to establish the rules of their new home now he had returned properly with all the authority he was sanctioned with to do so. Yami, as a Champion, knew he had the right to enforce law upon whatever demon was within their circle. It was tradition: Bakura had received his warning and with Jenzar's honour Yami wouldn't think about striking first but if the Child of Lilith stirred him then he would now feel no guilt in bringing wrath upon the demon.

"Yami!" Yugi cawed in stunned horror. "You just… you can't…"

"You've threatened him before," Yami shrugged, placing the phone down on the side table. "Just letting him know where stands. It's only polite. Never mind him. I just want you now."

"Lord," the Faen heaved in a sigh, "I really have forgotten what it's like to have you back on security detail. I think I almost forgot how… _devoted _doesn't quite cover it."

"Happens," Yami snorted nonchalant, turning the Faen gently in his arms to bring them face to face and as he brushed his nose along Yugi's brow all that childish excitement came flowing naturally back. "Can I go kiss you now? Let's curl up."

"Uh…" from a stunned mullet Yugi shook his head in exasperation, laughing airily, "you _spaz_. I swear. By the way, so, are shirts apparently against your religion now?"

It took Yami a second to realize what Yugi was implying by gesturing at the stark ruffled nature of his appearance. He and Jenzar had forsaken shirts and socks to get here in a flourish and hadn't batted an eyelid.

"Pretty much," he decided with a chuckle, before suggesting eagerly: "Bed?"

It was a switch, immediate, from one chain of thought to the next with a kind of innocent lack of preamble. This was what had mystified Yami not so long ago: how the ancient ones could grasshopper from one emotion to another with startling speed and little whiplash. This was him now. All beaming with love and vicious to protect it in a strange new way of living that rendered Yami almost a reborn being. He was overwhelmed with power, aflame, and empowered by billions of years of memories that flew through him but didn't for a second overcome his sanity. He was there, all the same, but yet more himself in a way altogether more realized, confident and, admittedly, hyper.

Yugi was the same age, if not the same species of being, and he understood but was heavy under what Yami realized was another problem as the Faen laughed at him. Yugi seemed tense. Was the weight of letting go of his vicious self-control and authority after centuries of protecting himself such an effort? Of course, he and Jenzar conferred, Atreyu had become a capable soloist in a way that made permitting even Jenzar back in strange and frightening. Yugi and Atreyu had been in total control and so wild to have Jenzar back perhaps he hadn't considered how to go back to normal once he had him. This wasn't a switch, it wouldn't happen immediately.

"You've got shell shock," Yami remarked offhandedly in realization and Yugi tilted his head up curiously at him, "you've been fighting so long it's like when soldiers go home and you tell them they don't have to anymore. They can't get used to be normal right away."

"I'm sorry," Yugi sighed on reflex but with sincerity, "I'm so happy you're back you can't even imagine it. I'm so fucking happy it's you." His hand wandered over Yami's face. "I love you so much. I'm sorry."

"It's fine," he shrugged easily, "I'm home. We just might take a while to get back to ourselves. It doesn't matter. Nothing can ruin today."

"I know," the Faen swore, smiling a little more coyly nearly shyly. "Go cuddle? I want you."

"Yes. So yes," Yami laughed.

There was so much to say, to do, so many buds of thought to develop and places to go but they would have to breathe and slow down to get there. Yami couldn't find everything today. They would need more time. Luckily, Jenzar grinned, they had millenniums of it.

"I'm not going anywhere," the Champion murmured as they swayed into each other, to himself really. "You're not going anywhere. Forever. Mine."

"Yours," Yugi cooed, purred a little more relaxed.

"There's a swoon," Yami rumbled back pleasurably, that was what he wanted: that happiness, that gooiness, seeping back into his Faen till Yugi was slack and happy and safe. He took the other's hand lightly, stealing a kiss, "come on."

There was something rightful, his, about collapsing on the tapestry print covers of Yugi's bed and gathering him up back in Yami's arms. Nothing dirty or shameful existed. Yami wasn't a traitor or some seducing thief rather this was his to be a part of. He was glad though that he'd waited to pluck this if only because it reassured him and because it perfected Yugi's contentment to have happiness found in the right sequence rather than by skipping ahead and healing it later.

They'd fallen back to kissing. Yugi shuffled closer, Yami's thigh slipped between his, and the Faen seemed to want to crawl up inside him closer than Yami's form would allow as the Fairy traced his shoulder blades.

"Why do you do that?" Yami whispered, nuzzling his hair, as one arm held the smaller close and the other roamed down his slide and up under his shirt along Yugi's spine.

"You have really pronounced shoulder blades. You're always kind of broad even though you're slender. They never really change much." The Faen murmured, nipping forgetfully up his neck. "I just remember you holding me when I'd get upset and I'd bury my face in your chest. You used to be way too tall for me to reach up around your neck without stretching. So it's easier to grab your shoulder blades. They feel like you. I don't know…is that silly? It's not much of a reason."

"No," he promised, catching the edge of Yugi's cheek as the Faen's lips found the arch of his neck under the chin.

"They just make me calm," Yugi muttered, pressing his mouth into the junction of the Champion's bare shoulder. One arm was stuck, trapped, between them while the other ran from between Yami's winged bones down his spine and slipped round to smooth up between them as the Faen mapped out the skin of his navel and the expanse of his chest.

Yami sighed. He could fall apart purring under the soft, familiar, ministrations of Yugi reaccustoming himself with his body. The Faen's fingers ran up his chest, traced his tendons and the grooves of his neck on one side as Yugi sighed to kissing the other. Yami's hand grasped his bare hip, his waist, felt how the heat of the skin burned more brightly under the thinnest layer of clothing. Just beneath the surface, submerged in cotton, Yugi's body was heated and warm to Yami's touch. His fore arms were supple, his neck was cool, everything exposed was milder in consistency but the skin that Yami found hidden pressed glowing under his hand.

Yugi slackened in his touch, some of that invisible but ever present tension inside the Faen letting go under the coaxing of a Champion's fingers. Had Yugi always been this stressed? This tightly wound? Or was Yami merely more aware of it now he had Jenzar's memories to contrast with? Maybe the Champion's capabilities made Yami more sensitive to it? Let him see it when Yugi kept it casually hidden to him.

"You've been the oldest and the strongest this whole life time," Yami muttered, "you've been looking out for me and Kaiba and Ryou and Mokuba…"

"I don't care," Yugi diverted gently, it was like his writing it seemed. Something the Faen did but would take no acknowledgement or praise for. "I wanted to. I still do. They're family."

'_Family_' was an explanation that cemented to Jenzar an understanding of Yugi he passed on to Yami easily. Atreyu had always been like this, always made little families where ever they went and he held them. Faens kept order, balance, protected, loved… it was an inclination Atreyu in particular always seemed to stray towards. Without Jenzar he supposed it was only more likely Yugi would take on his matron role viciously. The things Atreyu had done for kin in the time Jenzar had loved him could alone turn Yami pale. It was strange. Yami and Jenzar were so utterly, inseparably, united that thoughts flowed unbroken with understanding between them. In each observation of Yugi Jenzar's memories supplied layers to Yami's knowledge.

"This," Yami smiled, nudging Yugi onto his back gently. "Is why I love having kids with you, you know? You're such a good…mum, dad, whatever. It just seems right for you to make life and you always love it so much. So gorgeous…"

"Heh," Yugi snorted fingers roaming over Yami's arms and the arch of his shoulders, his eyes drifted distantly over the skin only to meander back to the Champion's face in acknowledgment. "You're so biased."

"You're _perfect_." Yami swore, half on his elbow, thigh settled between Yugi's as he lay almost atop the Faen rolling up the hem of his shirt.

"No," the Faen insisted lazily, "you win that. I've always liked you better than me."

"Hmm," there was ripple of contentment roaming in Yami's veins. Every nice, wonderful, thing Yugi had ever said about Jenzar was Yami's now. He had gotten a rare glimpse, he realized, into seeing how his kin truly felt about him when he was gone, when they didn't recognise him, and he had gotten to meet them all again for the first time. "You'd still fall in love with me…"

"Huh?" Yugi blinked.

"We usually remember," Yami muttered helping the Faen pull his tee over his head and drop it over the side of the mattress so the Champion's hands could feel his exposed flanks, "you usually figure out it's me. This time neither of us knew I was Jenz and we still fell in love again. After four billion years you're still not sick of me. You'd still do it all over again."

"You're not mad?" The Faen whispered hesitantly and Yami was taken aback. "I… I didn't know it was you I may as well have given up on you and buggered off with someone else."

"No," he snorted in amusement, "that's not it at all. No way. Just cause you fell in love with me as Yami and Atemu doesn't mean you betrayed me. It's better than that. It means if we could do all our life times over again, if you could choose between Champions again, if you didn't know me from a hole in the wall you'd still chose me. It's wonderful. It reminds me you love me, really, not just cause you've always loved me. Does that make any sense?"

"I'm still sorry," Yugi murmured sincerely, "I feel like I gave up on you for a minute there. I hate that."

"You didn't." Yami insisted. "Not even for a second. You're so much stronger than anyone I've ever met. They don't make em like you Trey, baby, _Yugi_."

He smiled unfurling, forgiving himself, to wrap his arms round Yami's neck and the Champion rediscovered the grooves of his hips with tender thumbs. There was power and possession in how Yugi purred under him, gave a little breath, arched and gave into Yami what was his time honoured right. No one else had Atreyu like this. No one really, truly, had this with this soul in Yami's hands. Other men and women had touched a body, stolen kisses or nights but the true core of Yugi, the true timeless self, was only every spread before Yami, Jenzar, like this.

Yugi's fingers seemed so intent on reaffirming Yami's features, stroking his cheekbones almost as if to reward the Champion for his kisses. Yugi's tongue brushed the seam of his lips and the elder felt heat kindle hotly in his gut. When he'd stolen those touches, when Yugi was sick after the Bull Seer attack, the Faen hadn't wanted him like this, he hadn't reached out and it made it sweeter to be wanted now when Yami's tongue moved slickly between Yugi's lips. Yugi's grip round him flexed in welcome, thighs flexing round Yami's and pulling free with freshly wetted lips he hooked his arm round Yugi's waist and took a slow, languid, moment to make the procession down the Faen's clavicle.

Yugi sighed, quiet and easy, up into him as the elder planted another tight kiss between his pectorals straying wistfully to lap at a hardened bud. Yugi exhaled, let go a sound that was a little _more _of that softly stroked desire and Yami felt the air expand in his chest as he pressed his lips round the pebbled skin.

Those sweet little fingers, delicate, carded through Yami's hair, brushing it from his face distantly as Yugi lay back so willingly into his coaxing and his fussing.

"_Oh_…" another heady swoon escaped and Yami knew he was wanted, so welcomed to this body, which was aching up for him.

Yami slithered down, buried his face in Yugi's smooth navel, dug his tongue into the indent and made the Faen sigh with another stroke of his thumbs into his hips.

"I want you." Yugi whispered. There was something about it, something old and softly purring, that made Yami raise his head from where he had pressed his cheek into the smaller body and immediately he found the Faen's eyes. Heady, almost dazed, indigo eyes had found a depth not previously shimmering from the boy. That ocean that was Atreyu had cooed into Yami and meant this. Yugi adored him.

Yami was drawn up at that, couldn't help himself, as tender as he was for Yugi inside him Jenzar seemed even more prone to fall to pieces in fawning over the Faen. It made them softly malleable. Too merciful to be teasing as Yugi became so terribly pliant, so wanton, and hushed Yami let the Faen kiss him harder. Yugi's arms came snug round him, pulled Yami down more fully into him, and the petite little fairy was instantaneously plush, luxurious, _glowing_. Jenzar made Yami moan, it flowed through the pair of them, he'd hadn't forgotten in all his years of imprisonment that sensual adoration that seeped milk and honey like from Atreyu. This was the sight he longed for, had missed most, the glimmer that was Yugi lusting so very thoroughly yet gently. This was the swoon of the Faen that whispered to Yami:_ make love to me. I only want you. _

They ceased kissing at an impasse, Yugi plucked his lips on Yami's forehead, hooked his thumb in his own waist band and nudging gently pushed the Champion to peel back off him. Yami rolled into his side and somehow very elegant Yugi rolled the fabric down his thighs as he drew up his knees. Creamy, unbroken skin was exposed between them and Yami, Jenzar, felt himself exhale with some foreign relief at the knowledge that Yugi at least hadn't been badly damaged in protecting himself during the Champion's absence.

Flames fanned Yugi seemed unknowingly sultry as he titled his head to kiss Yami and curled his fingers to tug at the Champion's waist band pulling the hem out and letting it snap back to emphasise his point.

"Please?" He prompted softly and alight Yami couldn't resist another sign into those lips as he lay back and struggled with his own pants. Yugi propped himself on his elbow, watched, lips barely parted and utterly satisfied when Yami slumped back to smile at him.

"What do you want?" The Champion inquired. He would do anything for Yugi and sliding off his elbow the Faen lay back beside him to kiss at the tip of his nose.

"I just want to touch you, be close," Yugi fluttered. "I remember but this body doesn't know how anymore. I don't think I can make it…relaxed enough to make love just yet. Settle for touching me?"

Creamy skin, rosy lips, perfect curves against his skin and under his fingertips… the image alone promised to make Yami moan. Jenzar reminded them to nod, the pair of them were apparently clueless dopes it seemed, and cooing Yugi laughed. The Faen pushed himself up, sat, and with something of a beaming smirk beckoned the Champion to sit with him. Yami fumbled onto his hands, pushing himself up, eager as a spring to taste him and enfold him. Jenzar would've done it before Yami could hold him back if Yugi hadn't slipped into his lap and hooked his legs snuggly round the Champion hands settled on his shoulders, thumbs rubbing into the groves of skin as Yugi leant to kiss him.

Yugi came flush against him. Rapturous Yami was unsure where to settle his hands, lips locked with the Faen's nipping at them teasingly, and folding easily into him Yugi rolled his hips. Yami moaned, Yugi swooned hushing as their foreheads rested together and empowered the Champion's fingers ran over the curve of the Faen's arse pulling him closer to grind them. Yugi's legs hooked flexing round his waist and arched, Yami's hands found his hips and-

"_Ah_…"

"_Oh_," Yami purred huskily, to have Yugi whisper pleasured against his cheek brought strength into his limbs.

Quiet moans, cutting, hoarse delicious sounds escaping Yugi that drove Yami to see how with the coaxing of his fingers and the rocking of his hips he could draw more of those wondrous sounds free of the Faen's taunt throat. He remembered these sounds, these perfect omissions that were all his as Yugi cleaved to him and Atreyu came wholeheartedly into the equation.

"I love you," Yami sighed, teeth scraping along the column of Yugi's neck, "_so_much."

Yugi's fingers sunk through his hair tugging his mouth back to the desperate Faen's and through a gasp the smaller fused their lips together. The smaller became needy pushing, titling, into Yami and holding him the Champion let Jenzar direct him to give an authoritative, possessive, roll of his hips grinding up into the other. Yugi's head fell back.

"_Oh_…" he groaned.

"That's it," Yami whispered, cradling the back of Yugi's skull. Fingers curled in thick locks as their skin slickened the Champion bringing their noses back together and making them lean into each other as Yami took full control of their motions. "So good."

"Love you," Yugi swore fevered, cupping his cheeks.

"Good?" He lapped behind the arc of one elfin ear, teeth scraping the lobe, arm slung low round those hips as he rocked them into each other.

"Hmm…" Yugi mewled, breathless, "so good… _Ah!_"

The moan extended, they chorused, Yami held him closer, tighter, Jenzar's possessiveness taking full protective bloom to feel the Faen fall languid and unfold vulnerably twitching against him. The Faen's arms slackened round his neck, thighs eased and moaning Yami took a long moment to slow his hips through the last lurching twitches of his impulses.

* * *

Yugi twisted ever so slightly under the quilting, ruffling the tapestry, and stirred Yami snuggled back down on reflex. The Faen moaned low, rolling into his chest, one slender leg hiking up over Yami's slack hips as the Champion stretched down to his toes arching his back. Yugi's cheek lay against his clavicle, the Faen's knee cocked over his hip, petite fingers limp on Yami's chest and nothing in the world could've been sweeter. He pried his eyes apart, groggy. Merging ever so slightly with Yugi had soothed the wild surge of energy pounding through him but the fire was still there.

His skin felt peculiar stretched over his frame as Yami considered it. Atemu was gone inside him yet not truly. Atemu, he and Jenzar had merged. The line Yami had drawn in the sand between he and Atemu had disappeared and now he was, inside and out, by some conversion back to his true self: Jenzar Fraveous. Yami Sennen was a name for this life time, temporary, a face for now that would age and die and then he would find a new one. That didn't scare him, that wouldn't be the death of Yami in any real way. He, himself, would continue to exist even after he escaped this body. He'd synced with immortality.

There were flickers of a moment when Jenzar seemed something all himself and Yami someone else but that seemed only to be the contrast between what his current reincarnation knew and what the storehouse of information which was his core held. Jenzar wasn't so much a separate entity when he gave Yami a hint this way or another rather when Yami strained his mind to remember the details of his own life it was as if some carbon copy of himself was handing him a note.

He didn't feel like he'd lost anything. He didn't feel like he'd lost Atemu or even what was Yami. He was finally completely himself. Confidence flooding, contentment thick, power immense and order restored. Yami's insides had been filled, his broken puzzle pieces reassembled back to their final and naturally intended shape.

Nostalgia prompted him to remember not so long ago when he'd felt a traitor in this bed. When he'd felt diabolical for desiring Yugi and Atreyu. When he had been willing to let go of the Faen and prepare himself for Jenzar's dislike. Never again. Jenzar pulsed at the back of his conscious driving him to squeeze Yugi's warm body a little closer. He would never again think of sharing or surrendering this being. Yami and Atemu might've been willing to let Yugi go for a better man but, perhaps a little selfish, Jenzar would've slaughtered himself to be the best and to deserve the Faen forsaking all else and utterly repugnant to willingly walk away from this fairy being. Jenzar, layered into Yami, assured them they had no reason to ever walk away from this beauty. This ancient being was theirs, claimed by their own hand and authorised by Atreyu for an eternity. They were not the '_other man_' destined to prove themselves Yami was, Jenzar affirmed, _the_ man of this house and anyone who would like to joust for their lovely regal fairy had best prepare themselves for battle.

There was a mingling of innocent joy and ancient possession in the protectiveness of a Champion. Simple love and endless determination proved to be a powerful coupling. Yugi's skin on his, Yugi's ease with him, was precious. Yami soaked in the afternoon sun tasting the glorious satisfaction of it. Under Atreyu's doughy covers in the netted light rippling through the submerged and obscured home. The Faen's magic hummed gently half gooey warm but contrastingly cool and slick in a non-physical way. His core restored Yami could sense every detail of magic in the house. He could feel rather than see the layers of magic Atreyu, Yugi, had lain in these rooms which soaked right through the walls and lay in stacks of forgotten but acutely alive layers. It was as if Yami could see the gooey, fungal, cross section of a rainforest floor or a compost bin rich with nutrients.

More than that Yami could sense his own magic. The puddle he had once possessed to draw upon was an ocean. Perhaps not endlessly self-perpetuating like Atreyu's magic which knew no boundary but the warehouse of strength Yami now had to draw on and form spells with was a world all its own. Yami could think of nothing he couldn't attempt at least once with so much power. He could feel his magic; ruddy, crimson and sharp crisscrossing the house like strings, beams of sunlight, fire… He could feel it unconsciously wrapping the house locking it with wards. He could feel it tangling and netting round Yugi in old familiar motions as Yami had done for centuries. Spell after spell after spell of intention made physical: love, safety, security, protection…all snug round Yugi, invisible but present.

Atreyu was a mender, creator and healer, the fairy, the ocean, Gaia. Atreyu fixed things, healed wounds in the Veil, saw the truth of matters and made them beautifully new and right. This however was Champions' magic: for war, battle, defence and victory. Yami's duty, Jenzar's duty, was as a warrior against monsters and insidious magic. Yugi fixed the Veil and Yami made sure he could do it. He kept them safe in the Natural and Supernatural and now, core aflame and returned, he could finally, actually, do that. No more panicking, no more sleepless nights, no more heavy weight upon Yugi as the most powerful to be combat driven in striving to protect their coven single handed.

Something thrummed, beat, and perplexed Yami glanced down. The red pendent round Yugi's neck had been utterly forgotten by the author in all this nonsense but now, to see it round the Faen's neck and splaying across his own chest brought a smile to his face. Yami carefully ran his fingers over it, feeling the Lance of Lazarus hidden within, and sparking to him the Lance which was a product of his own magic, he now realized, hummed with heat within the little glass pendent. It seemed to coo almost in Yami's fingers, newly responsive to his whims, and Yami remembered rather proudly how not so long ago he had doubted himself capable of ever making something so intimidating for Yugi. He had made this and even with him split in two the Lance of Lazarus had done its' duty. He was so proud of his creation it was almost paternal.

Yami still liked himself. Yami was still at peace. Better now was only the assurance, the certainty, that Yugi was his and happily, guiltlessly, so. How surreal was this? How bizarre to be, himself, Jenzar Fraveous. He was the lover of the Third Faen of Earth, the distinguished star among stars, Atreyu Damestaire. He was a Reaper Specialist and the Champions of Champions. At this rate his ego might explode from such doting…

That this was _real_ hit Yami even harder, left him staring dumbstruck and beaming at the canopy of the four poster bed. That four years of writing fiction had surmounted to this reality was more than an escapist self-confessed fan boy like himself could take.

* * *

Jenzar inhaled deeply, nostrils flaring, and sighing revelled in the thick smoky atmosphere of the Hive with its ceremonial fires which had blazed since his infancy. His body felt firm, physical, and hardy. He was taller again, darker again, his armour had returned to its black steel from the cotton of the Aztecs and rather than weighty the steel was comforting and wisp light in his motions. He had perfect flexibility for combat. The armour itself really had no weight rather it was an eternal layer of Jenzar's magic coating him more fortified than his previous armoury if only for the returned strength of his core.

He could feel the glyph of his tattoo across his cheek, ebony on honey Arab skin, and its presence more than anything made him feel himself at last. These things: the feel of his tattoo, the flexibility of his armour, the warmth of the Lance of Lazarus against his clavicle ready and waiting for combat were things he hadn't even known he was missing. Yet now they were returned to him he was so incredibly comforted by them.

"Welcome home."

Atreyu, still sparkling freshly, greeted and Jenzar found his gait as the Faen's slender fingers brushed his elbow. The little fairy stepped round him from behind to come face to face and at once Jenzar caught a honeyed glitter in Atreyu's aubergine eyes. The sultriness of this creature as Atreyu met his eyes now was a glimmer neither Atemu nor Yami had ever seen revealed in this sweet matronly fairy. The angel had never looked at them with this desire.

"My little one," Jenzar purred, and smirking, soothed, the Faen pushed his weight onto the balls of his toes to take the Champion's shoulders in his hands.

Jenzar was given no opportunity to inquire more past that sincere statement because at once Atreyu's fingers were cupping the back of his neck, dragging his taller body down, so the Faen could buck up on his tip toes and fuse their lips together. Atreyu grasped him with such passion, such appreciative adoration, Jenzar floundered to swoon as the Faen kissed him as if he might bruise the Champion's lips before he let go.

"Let us greet our kin?" Atreyu supposed, dropping back to the heels of his feet, dragging his bare forearm temptingly over the seam of his lips at the wet slither of saliva he had created between them.

"Uh…I…" Jenzar quirked coming back to himself from the distraction but struggling for any greater eloquence. To think that Atreyu would kiss him or push flush against him with such a flourish of true desire was still delightfully foreign yet immensely satisfying.

"You can't stare all day Love," Atreyu teased, "despite your known preference for shiny objects we have work to undertake."

"_Trey!_" He laughed, feigning insult. It was a particular pleasure after these cold months to see his Faen so playful with him here. This was Atreyu in private, this was the great Faen of Earth playing coy and teasing. This was secret beauty for Jenzar's eyes alone.

"What ever can I say?" He giggled. "You've always had a poet's weakness for things of fascination but I don't suppose you can gather enough words to carry out a brief conversation with your clan after four hundred years?"

"I have tomes of words I could use for you." Jenzar snorted playfully. "The others are here?"

"Dying to celebrate," Atreyu elaborated, grasping to thread his fingers through Jenzar's unhesitatingly. "Come, Amar and Seviticus are waiting."

"My brothers!" He cheered at thought.

"The children too," the Faen tempted as he tugged, "and Yusei, Timaeus, even Cobalt!"

"Ha!" Jenzar scoffed merrily. "Come to laugh at me, no doubt, how glorious!"

"So easily amused," Atreyu retorted unabashed, "you are so swept up."

"It feels as if I've hardly seen them or rather as if they have hardly, really, seen me." He shrugged as they strolled. "Do they know yet?"

"Jenzar Fraveous!" Amar called boisterously throwing his arms out as they reached one of the inner courtyards near the coliseum and laughing, train of thought forgotten entirely, Jenzar left Atreyu's hand to sweep the redhead and evergreen Seviticus up into either arm. He was taller than either of them now.

"Easy!" Seviticus chortled as Jenzar quiet nearly bowled the two of them over and hefted them off their feet.

"Apologies," he beamed, "I hardly know my own strength anymore!"

"It's so good to have you back," Amar promised hand slamming firm with his own strength between Jenzar's shoulder blades. "Find your body I trust?"

"Aye indeed!"

"And what of Atemu?" Seviticus supposed hooking his arm round one shoulder with a jovial nonchalance as he glanced from Jenzar to Atreyu. "I've yet to see our hero tonight?"

Atreyu chuckled and sweeping his hand gestured over Jenzar from head to toe in an inclusive explanation the other Champions required no elaboration on.

"My gods!" Amar groaned miserably, slapping his hand against his brow, falling back into laughter. "However could I miss it? Oh Atreyu forgive me dear one!"

"I know, I know," the Faen laughed, "you, I and Seviticus must assemble a fools' club for this oversight. We hardly knew our own."

"Of course," Seviticus snorted, slapping at Jenzar. "Only you, only our one and only Jenzar Fraveous, would be so genius and yet hapless enough to be split asunder, find his way back brainlessly and not only assist in but salvage his own rescue mission!"

They shared a cackle, gentle in their teasing and it was familiarity Jenzar recognised as the change in Sev and Amar which allowed them to unleash their full strength as they bumped into him or used their sharpest barbs as they spoke. These were the words of dear friends too old and knowledgeable to be deeply polite or portray any image as they had to protect Atemu who was to them a child still. At that thought tenderness, rather than embarrassment, stirred swelling within Jenzar.

"Thank you," he mumbled between them, "I can't thank you both enough."

"Oh, whatever for?" Amar snorted. "I didn't even recognise you in your disguise!"

"Aye but, Amar, you've done so much for me." Jenzar found himself gushing stupidly to the redhead. "You never gave up on me, even as Atemu, you protected my children and Atreyu for me. You've been so kind and good."

"We are family," the Champion shrugged, almost embarrassed. "If something dreadful had befallen me I did not doubt for a second you would've gone to any length to protect Denn-Elec for me. I have always been bitterly close to you and Atreyu as you have been with us. What brother would I be if I abandoned you?"

"Oh and Sev," Jenzar sighed, "you and I so hardly know each other and yet you have gone above and beyond your duty as a comrade to help us! True you and Vegas are the only other Champion and Faen on Earth but there have been times of late when you have put yourself in much greater danger than necessary or through greater efforts than needed just for our sake. I can't thank you sufficiently."

"Hush," Sev scoffed with equal flush to Amar as he tossed his verdgis locks. "I have never forgotten you from Sanctuary, or our times stationed on other planets, or your many accolades through history. You are a good soul. You have always been kind. I would be ashamed of myself, like any Reaper would be, if I could not say that I was here to do my utmost."

"Well now you are surely one of my closest brothers," Jenzar decided firmly, "and please never hence hesitate to call upon me for anything. I should owe the both of you till the Doomsday! Atreyu would've been so unguarded without you both I couldn't bear it!"

"Atreyu is far too beloved to have been alone," Amar snorted. "All's well you great affectionate fool. Now cease worrying, you are most welcome, I don't regret a moment of my part assisting you so let us join the rest."

* * *

1 Okay, so, last chapter: Yami didn't puke up his core or Atemu so don't worry. Yami has, till this point, been existing without a core (which is why he couldn't unlock his memories and why Dartz said there was no Atemu Pheramora because that's not his true name). He's been running off power he received from Third Star who tried to heal him in Sanctuary. Now he has his core back he's back to being Jenzar Fraveous rather than just a piece of Jenzar. What he puked was the junk he accumulated trying to survive without a core. It was kind of like a cleansing. Make sense?

2 Careful readers will remember Yugi tracing Yami's shoulder blades in chapter 4 and yes there will be a proper lemon later. Sorry kids but anal sex doesn't happen in a day!

3 Good news _and_ bad news next chapter~ As well as the YGO identities of: Amar, Sev, Denn-Elec, Vegas, Morphis, and Nephele. Stay tuned and lodge your guesses while you have a chance!

Love you guys, thanks for all the amazingly sweet reviews. We're not done with this fic just yet thank fully.


	19. The World Eater

Hey kiddos, hope you've all had fab weeks. This chapter we have smut, past lives, the reveal of YGO counterparts and some very bad news~

* * *

Chapter 19: _The World Eater_

"Father!" Nephele, his youngest, was unsurprisingly the first to lunge into his arms.

"My sweetheart," Jenzar surged, that same protective longing he felt for Atreyu was softened into Nephele as he held the excited Timer. Nephele relaxed almost immediately, excitement wanning to contentment and tilting his head back the dashing little creature flashed him one of those most brilliant smiles. He was such a Daddy's boy this sweet thing. "Oh, how I missed you…"

Nephele cooed against him appreciative to be appreciated. Beside the Timer Morphis, his anxious Knight, leant his weight more into one foot than the other and appeared to hesitate as though fighting the urge to colour fiercely.

"And what about Morphis?" Jenzar teased beckoning. "Come here you dashing lad! I'm so proud of you!"

Chuckling the Knight almost broke, unable to help himself, overjoyed on the interior at the praise and at once he had reverted to a boy. Jenzar leant as the youth ran to hook his arms round his waist and hefting the boy up held Morphis on his hip like a babe so the Knight would instead throw his arms round his neck.

"I am so very, _very_, proud of you." Jenzar swore against Morphis' brow. "You did magnificently."

"Not as well as Atemu!" Morphis cawed excitedly into his neck.

"Yes, well," Jenzar grinned from ear to ear. "I am _stunning_."

At that Morphis' lips fell apart and in his arms both Nephele and Morphis coloured viciously vermillion. They had both, all three counting Drea, spoken with him unguarded as Atemu and spoken _of_him in fact. Morphis especially seemed as if he might shrink again from a lad of ten to five as he stuttered but he caught himself then and excited suddenly cried out.

"That means you're Yami Sennen!" He beamed, bouncing in Jenzar's arms delightedly. "You and Atreyu are in Japan! I can come visit you!"

"Y-Yami Sennen?" Nephele repeated on his other arm as Jenzar cast Morphis a loving chuckle for his antics. The Timer had coloured even more deeply, fingers playing across his lips, his eyes fluttering uncertainly between Jenzar and Atreyu at the realization. "I…I dated a Yami Sennen once…"

"Oh?" Jenzar laughed. "Oh Neph, never fear, the times I have been lovers with Drea I can't even count! Never mind, you must come see us too, I should love to meet the two of you if you are both in Japan. I cannot meet Amar and Seviticus because of their Faens and the Secrecy Pact but to have you both would give me such joy."

"W-well…" Nephele batted as his own hair, perplexed and embarrassed.

"Yes! Yes!" Morphis bounced. "I'll visit!"

"Say you will Neph," Jenzar pleaded, "I am dying to meet you again properly!"

In all his excitement it took Jenzar a moment or so to catch Atreyu before him, folding his arms delicately, shaking his head with a mother's patience as another cheeky smile played at his lips.

"I-if," Jenzar caught himself jovially, "it's alright with your Mother _of course_."

"Second father this lifetime," Atreyu smiled, plucking Morphis out of Jenzar's arms to hold against his own chest. "_Of course_you two should come and find us. Don't be embarrassed Neph. Not even I recognised your sneak of a Father. He's a harlot. Come see us. I shall treat the pair of you."

"We must find Drea too for that matter." Jenzar affirmed.

"That may be a little bit longer," the Faen sighed, kissing Morphis brow as he brushed the boy's hair away and the child cleaved to him. "He's chosen not to attend tonight."

"Why?" The Champion baulked miserably, clutching Nephele a little closer on reflex. "It's hardly a celebration without all three of them."

"I couldn't say for sure," Atreyu shrugged gently, rocking Morphis. "I think our boy's a little embarrassed. I'd say he's discovered you are Atemu by his own means."

"Oh…" Jenzar sighed. Yes, Drea who had hoped that both dejected he and Atemu could mourn Jenzar and Atreyu creeping off into the sunset together. He had almost forgotten. That rug had been pulled away from Drea. The boy must've been upset. Their fickle, strange and perplexing Sequester with his good heart, his sultry body and his harsh tongue. Drea who was such a Daddy's boy for Jenzar and who, given the opportunity, would no doubt have liked to love him as Atreyu did.

"He'll recover." Atreyu hushed gently. "He always does. Just give him a little while. He'll come see us when he's ready. He's not skilled at letting his affections go in public. He would want to reconverge with you more privately but I do not doubt he's dying to see you again."

"Still," he sighed, "till then I shall miss him. Morph you and Neph shall have to entertain me till then."

"Aye Sir!" cried the boy.

"That's my strapping hero," Jenzar teased, plucking another kiss against Nephele's brow. "I'll return in a moment darlings I must go see Timaeus and Yusei."

"I'll manage here then," Atreyu dismissed, beckoning Nephele closer as Jenzar's arms slipped from round the Timer.

It was such a pleasure to see Atreyu with _their_ children, _his_ children, that Jenzar could not resist glancing over his shoulder once or twice to catch another sight of the Faen spoiling the pair of them. Those were his babes, they loved him, that was something of a special tie all its own which brought a smile to Jenzar and to Yami. He could barely detach himself from the intimate sight of Atreyu nuzzling and Morphis nestling.

"Timaeus," he greeted stern but uncharacteristically nervous as he found the Guardian. The Atlantean was by Cobalt who, spotting Jenzar, shared a quiet curt nod with the Champion who smiled back.

"Reaper Champion Jenzar Fraveous," Timaeus nodded in his turn, "you are well again?"

"Very," he assured, thrusting out his hand to the elder watcher. "I must thank you sincerely. I recall how fierce out battle was in the second life. You were under no implication to help here."

"Atlantis would have been at risk inevitably," Timaeus shrugged in dismissal but generously he took Jenzar's hand in his own nonetheless. "You are welcome."

"I apologise for our rivalry."

"Do not," Timaeus insisted gently aloof and formal, "you would not apologise for destroying Atlantis and I will not apologise for protecting it. I do not resent you or your kin. I am glad you are free. You are a good soul."

"You are a great man yourself," Jenzar promised, "thank you still. If ever there is a circumstance I can repay you…"

"I shall not hesitate to demand your assistance." Timaeus assured with a small, alluding, little smile which sent Jenzar's hackles to rest in peace. "Enjoy your family for now. They seem to have missed you dearly."

Jenzar did not regret making any promises of loyalty or fealty to these people here tonight. They each deserved his alliance for their bravery and he was so grateful. That was a feature of great power; with it came a generosity which forced Jenzar to apply it to good use. He did regret however that now revealed in his true form a wedge of history had been placed between he and Timaeus which they might never overcome properly.

Yusei Fudomakari, Jenzar smiled, the young Reaper and hidden Champion of some planet other than Earth was leant against a far wall of the coliseum as strictly as Atemu had ever seen him. Jenzar for his part remembered this young Champion even if, as of yet, Yusei did not himself. Yusei had always been such a stern presence in Sanctuary, difficult to stir to play, but endlessly good hearted and generously brave. A chivalrous soul Jenzar recalled how Yusei's valiant nature had more than once made he and Amar colour nervously as they passed him in Sanctuary off to play some game or another with Denn-Elec and Atreyu. No wonder upon recognising him Atreyu and Amar had been keen to have him tag along even if Yusei did not recognise himself. Once the boy recalled his memories as a Champion he would be truly imposing.

Who was Yusei's Faen? Jenzar struggled to recall as he approached. Ah yes! He grasped at the name: _Scarlet Eisendra_. Scarlet had been such a quiet Faen, with such bright cattish eyes, so knowing and seemingly wise Jenzar was not sure he had ever heard the crimson Faen speak a word to Yusei. They had always appeared to speak only in glances and expressions and the pair had only ever raised their hushed voices for the questions of their excitable siblings in Sanctuary. Such a precious pair it was no surprise that after all these billions of years, even not remembering his past yet in this lifetime, that Yusei was such a talented Reaper still.

"Yusei Fudomakari," he greeted, thrusting his hand out. "My brother."

"Atemu?" The boy blinked unaided, unpeeling from the wall with a bemused glance over his companion. "Jenzar?"

"Both," he answered, "you are sharp. The others had to be told."

"I just…" Yusei laughed weakly, taking his hand in a fearlessly firm grip. "It's something about your eyes when you look at Atreyu."

"You," Jenzar insisted, "are a strikingly, singularly, brilliant friend."

"I…" he fumbled, taken aback, "I don't know about that."

"You saved me in that maze." Jenzar reminded. "I am proud to have met you. We shall met again after this sometime I hope? Here at the Hive or on some mission? I can hope we are stationed together on the same planet soon as well."

"Yes," Yusei nodded weakly smile tugging up despite his restraint, "that would nice."

* * *

Not so far away Troy, home of the Sequesters, was tightly locked under Ammit's supervising watch in a pocket dimension along the supernatural side of the Veil and secured in an observation room amongst the multitude of magnificent glass mirrors the reunion within the Hive was tended to.

"So Cassidia is gone and Atemu Pheramora is Jenzar Fraveous," Drea mumbled darkly, nails digging into his bare forearm as he regarded the scene transpiring bellow his vision.

His Father of so many generations swept the sparkling Faen, that was so often Drea's mother, up into his arms as splendid as he ever had been and suspended observant of them in a darkened upper alcove of the universe felt Drea stomach wretch. Sequesters had access to view private moments like this, to view private places like the Hive, in the course of their investigations and observations. Hidden in a pocket dimension on the far end of the Veil Drea abused that privilege now to watch the proceedings with a critical eye.

Morphis and Nephele celebrated with the rest of the victors. Yusei the newly christened hiding Champion, Amar and Seviticus and the rest of his relative kin great and small had likewise clustered round the Fairy and his Prince in the warm glow of the newly restored order.

"And now there's no distraught Atemu for me to encroach upon," Drea mused miserably, fist tightening. "So for another lifetime Atreyu has Jenzar all to himself and Morphis will be charmed by Nephele and all will be beautiful while my waking body rots on another sphere light years away."

It was an old wound, foully dank, and struggling against it Drea tried to quell the resentment bubbling inside him. How many times had he found himself amongst peons, fools and traitors? How many lifetimes now had he wandered watching Atreyu and Jenzar rebuild the same little patch of paradise that taunted his loneliness? Wasn't Drea after all the black sheep, the bad seed, of the Fraveous clan?

"So again there's nothing left for me." He spat irritably.

Sighing he ran his hands tenderly over his face. He couldn't stand to attend the festivities. Reapers revelled too loudly for him and to watch Atreyu dance always sent a fire through his spine that wrought him raw with loathing. He _loved_ them, all of them, desperately but to be enfolded in Jenzar's arms again for a moment and then be cast aside forgotten for Atreyu was something he didn't endure willingly anymore.

How many lifetimes had he stood beside the worst of Jenzar Fraveous? When Jenzar was reincarnated a tyrant, a murderer, or a charlatan Drea would adore him and stand beside him. Drea would let him torture Atreyu's reincarnations. He would let the Faen mourn and suffer and allow Jenzar when the brutality that crept up inside him swelled. Then, as always, Atreyu would find a way through the gap or wipe all the blood away and erase Drea's temporary claims. How many lifetimes had he and Jenzar been, not father and child, but lovers and dictators? And how many times had Atreyu cleaned, cleansed and eradicated it all with his reappearance?

That was Drea's only way to Jenzar. In no other type of life would Jenzar lean to him and always, upon finding Atreyu, in one way or another the Champion would lean away again. Whether they loved or loathed each other in the Mortal world Jenzar and Atreyu were perfectly drawn and stitched together. Even if the Faen hated the Champion inevitably Jenzar would be entrapped and devoted by Atreyu's temptations turning his focus, his attention, his efforts and most often his heart towards the Faen. Sometimes for years Drea lay in Jenzar's bed, across the eons and lifetimes, contented in ways he never was elsewise and nearly driven to madness by his paranoia eventually would remember_ why_ he could never hold the Champion as his own or keep him that way. Atreyu would always find them.

Yet he _loved_ Atreyu, as he loved Jenzar, and so many memories conflicted in his heart of the decades where Atreyu had borne him or sired him and suckling him kissed him and clothed him. Atreyu was nothing if not a doting devoted parent. Atreyu had thrown himself before bullets and beasts to protect Drea, Morphis and Nephele when they were reincarnated as his children. Atreyu had held him to his breast when he cried, driven swords through Jenzar's incarnations, just to win Drea a little more time in the mortal coil.

Morphis too, charming and foolish sibling, every so often could find his way to loving Drea and for those brief lifetimes Drea almost tasted peace. Yet Morphis was never enough and unsatisfied by Drea's stargazing, which was innately part of the Sequester, the Knight was so often drawn to contented Nephele who would live an eternity on simple joys and innocent love. Nephele was better for Morphis, less torturous, and Drea had to consent that.

Them aside there were no others Drea could find his way to loving properly or steadily. Alive or Astral he wandered. His memories, his skills, followed him through the ages and driven by his type to know his past his soul was infected by the cruel ironies of the universe.

Even now he wanted Atreyu to tell him he was proud of his child. Even tonight he wanted to dance with Morphis, to hold Nephele like a twin to his bosom, to feel Jenzar press his lips to his forehead and tell him that he loved him even if only as kin or child. The morning would come though, it would pass, they would go their separate ways and this loneliness would creeping back return to fill the void they left in him.

"They're sickening aren't they?"

Drea twisted, hissing, and rounded on the intruder.

"Get out!" He ordered turning from the mirror that exposed the inner sanctum of the Hive. "I have no time for eavesdroppers!"

"Shame," the creature sighed, creeping closer with a casual flick of his wrist as the light of the mirror exposed more of his shape. "You're a magnificent soul. I should very much like to be your shadow."

"Shadow?" Drea murmured following the form of the intruder. "What _are_you?"

This was not a normal soul…

The magic rolling off this phantom was warm, unlike the brittle chill of the Seers and their Queens. The voice which rumbled from beneath the hood of the cloaked seven foot _thing _was hoarse, masculine, but the resonance of it was somehow unpleasant. It extended one hand towards Drea and as the Sequester took a half a step back into his mirror saw the long, clawed, fingers clothed in tight alien blue skin. How had anything snuck into Troy unnoticed by his Supervisor? It seemed absurd when this being was so obviously a demon.

"A destroyer of worlds," it rasped, "and I would like to make you very happy. If you'll let me I should like to spin your dreams to forge a new reality."

"Oh don't mock me!" Drea seethed mistrustingly, back hitting the revealing looking glass, and began to plot his escape to raise the alarm. He would rip this foul thing to wretched little morsels.

"I would never mock you child," it assured, clawed hands extended for Drea's as it swaggered closer. "You're just what I need. The passion and the skills I need to finish my puzzle. Won't you let me make you happy?"

"Happy?" The Sequester repeated. Perhaps this beast was broken. "How?"

"I can give you Jenzar Fraveous," it promised, "if you want him. I can cease your reincarnation cycle and create a single planet external of all the current rules of the Veil where we will be truly immortal. If you'll only help me."

"You're _mad_." Drea scoffed decidedly. "The Faens will stop you. It's a fool's errand. Even the Seers know they'll never totally succeed. The best they can do is slow the progress. You'd have to be ridiculous to think you could change the universe."

"They won't stop me."

It chuckled, assured, in a way that Drea had never heard so clearly exposed. There was a confidence that lacked arrogance and found cunning instead. Bemused but curiously entranced, as he always had been by dark shadows, Drea extended his hand ever so gently to brush his fingers against the tips of the beasts'. He was not a boy who knew much of fear as he had spent too long dealing it to others.

"Who are you?" Drea mused head tilting as the creature delicately brought the Sequesters palm to obscured lips which pressed against it through a muslin veil hidden under the hood.

"Zorc Necrophades." It murmured. "A World Eater."

"Zorc," Drea repeated in a whisper, "and you'll give me what I want will you monster?"

"Both of us will get what we want."

A World Eater? Drea had never heard of such a thing in all his millions and billions of years. Even the magic which flowed through this entity, this phantom, was of such a different flavour Drea had no comparison for it. It was older than the stretch of Drea's memory. Something like this could only be from the first life, the dawn of time, and perplexed the Sequester did not peel himself away. It was as if scraping the bottom of the ocean he'd found some great mammoth unknown to mankind and now stared it in the face.

"To do something so powerful would require a Supervisors' magic." Drea reminded himself. "You're suggesting you have the power to defeat three Faens and the spells of a dozen or more Supervisors, _gods, _protecting and governing Earth and its Veil?"

"I am a sibling of the gods you serve." It hissed. "The Gate Keeper cringes at me, Third Star cries at my name, the Leviathan hums my song, Ammit and Chronos and Earth's Gaia would all like to forget me while the Seers' mother, Lilith, would love to be loved by me."

"Then what do you need me for?"

"Your heart."

* * *

Rishid drew his hands back in over his face, a wispy moan escaping as he roused himself from yet another nap, his consciousness beating him awake with the insistent prodding of a small child. He had work to do, it was a constant tingle of a thought prying at the back of his mind, and letting slump his hands back to the mattress he took another breath. He was centred but his body was still unwilling to move, haggard from a sleep that brought scarce tangible rest.

The door cracked, squeaked a little, and hotel light warped through the gap along with Marik. The younger was rather unceremonious about clambering onto the mattress and by extension onto him. Rishid could forgive the odd angles of Marik's bones, eyes fluttering, hands shoving him this way or that so the elder could contain his comfort but the smaller could sit. Marik let Rishid reposition him, as if he were some four day pup and hand settling on the elder's chest the young man seemed to be growing impatient.

"_Well?_" He pried whispering in some gesture of pity for Rishid's exhausted body but far too excited to be more lingeringly subtle.

"Jenzar's fine," Rishid yawned the necessities, "Trey's safe. Everything's back to normal."

"Yes!" Marik hissed fingers curling into a fist as he brought his elbow into his side victoriously. Uncontained he hollered over his shoulder at the next breath as the tide of it rose, welling merrily, inside him. "_Hey Ishizu!_"

Rishid groaned a little at the exclamation. Marik had always been so excitable on these matters. He couldn't find it in himself to blame his surrogate sibling for this life any more than he could find it in himself to blame Atreyu or Jenzar or anyone else for their twitches of habit. Denn-Elec had always been excitable Marik just followed suit this incarnation.

"What?" Ishizu supposed head thrust in the doorway. "Is everything okay?"

"Jenz is back in the game!" Marik explained. "Trey's safe and the Seers got their fucking asses kicked!"

"Oh thank god," she laughed in an exhale, "that's fantastic."

* * *

In an equally obscure corner of the world, not terribly far from Domino Japan but still separated by a rather vast ocean if not a time zone, Raphael had doused himself under the heat of an early morning shower. Inhaling stoutly, eyes burning with sleep, he padded into the dim early morning lush of the empty kitchen. The tiles were burningly frigid, outside mist still hung very heavy on the garden and frost bogged the grass where the sunlight had yet to penetrate near the back door. Was that a rosella chirping? He never had any memory for the sounds but the atmosphere in this country was so very distinct from Europe that the air felt tangibly lighter, sunnier, than in Germany.

He almost decided on coffee, stood with the fridge open for a moment, and concluding against it waded back across the new-house smelling carpet into the sloppy bedroom across the foyer. Valon was still tossed across his mattress. Their roommate Alister, the tedious Watcher, wouldn't be back for hours yet form his Saturday night festive and dipping in the door Raphael still wasn't sure how to be gentle with Valon when they were here in the Natural world. He nudged him, roused him a little and groaning the boy rolled.

"Wha?" He mumbled, only half receptive, and Raphael knew he'd have to repeat himself later.

"Jenz and Trey are back," he mumbled his announcement, "everything's safe again."

"_Yay_…" Valon moaned happy but weak. On the cusp of drifting off again he was too unconscious to actually be stirred more to curiosity and rampant chattering questions like he would later when he found his morning legs.

Raphael snorted, left him be, and mused not for the first time how the young man could be such an angel when he was almost asleep and when they were hunting but when struck by daylight was right back to being Raphael's delinquent. Lifetimes were cruel with ironies but enjoying him as he was not Raphael gave his shoulder a squeeze and left him to sleep a little longer.

* * *

Leon threw his arms up over his head, stretching the limber muscles, and let his limbs flop back against his side in the morning line for coffee. For a Monday it was strange for this place to have so many patrons but he found he savoured the wait. He was hazed from two nights of fighting and celebrating trapped in his sleeping self more than his conscious. He was usually rather quick to adjust between hunts and the mundane everyday he woke up to but on the other side of the looking glass this morning he couldn't help finding himself a little giddy.

Jenzar, handsome wonderful Jenzar, was home safe and sound. Order was restored in the universe. The day was saved yet again thanks, of course, in part to Atreyu Damestaire. Not for the first time Leon was proud to call these people his kin, his family, and gave a little roll of his shoulders half to work out the strains half excited.

He coloured ever so slightly to himself, fingering his wallet in his pocket, eyes roaming from the menu mounted on the wall back to the laminate flooring with an oddly mixed emotion of surreal happiness. Jenzar and Atreyu were in Japan. Jenzar was Atemu but more than that he was Yami Sennen!

Leon hadn't seen Yami in yonks. He'd have to bring flowers. Atreyu had always liked certain blooms in particular. Leon couldn't name them but he would remember when he saw them. He rather hoped Atreyu wasn't allergic to anything this time round. He rather hoped Atreyu's current incarnation didn't mind Leon's unknowing rendezvous with Jenzar as Yami either... He doubted any incarnation of Atreyu could ever dislike him, Leon had too much faith in Atreyu for that, and nervous, embarrassed, Leon still couldn't help that rush of energetics he always associated with seeing his long time parents again in the flesh of the Natural world.

* * *

Jaden felt the sticks crackling against the small of his back and rued agreeing on the camping trip. It was a school thing, annoyingly, and the guys wanted him there. Part of some year eleven group fiasco about getting to know each other and bonding before the final year of exams and all that shit n' stuff. Wasn't exactly like Jaden could tell his year coordinator:_ 'Oh yeah, by the way, I'm gonna be fighting some Seer butt Saturday night and then partying like a pro Sunday night in my dream world so, ya know, don't sign me up for canoeing or whatever._'

He gave a little squeal to himself, pulling in his arms and kicking out with his legs in the sleeping bag.

"Fucking _awesome!_" He murmured, unable to really restrain the joyous little whisper that trickled quickly out of him in a sigh.

His badass parents were back in the show whooping supernatural junk like super heroes again. Everything, today, exhausted or not for this school junk was fucking amazing. His class mates wouldn't get it, he knew better than to try and explain this little badge of self pride he carried with him internally but Jaden knew that Earth had just shined up its armour against some of the scariest things in the universe. With all three of Earth's Champions and Faens back in the business everyone should be sleeping safer.

That was the heroic side of it. The personal side of it was that Jaden had helped set things straight, continued making a name for himself, and more than that he had a tagline to one of his favourite authors of all time. He liked Atemu, he _loved_ Yami Sennen's books and he was loved by Jenz and Trey. That was pretty cool. Yami Sennen had written about Jaden's world, Jaden's life, and it made the whole experience less lonely to know there were others out there louder about it than him.

Now he got to see Jenz and Trey again. Now he got to meet Yami Sennen and say: '_I've known you before! You're my old man! This is great!_' and hopefully not seem like some rampant idiotic spaz machine. Then there was Trey…Oh, Trey…Jaden cooed a little, blushing to his own stupidity, but Trey was safety, inhumanly so, a mother's cuddles and guardian's security. With Trey Jaden never felt like a jerk or a fool or anything bad about himself. Jaden couldn't imagine anything better than meeting Trey in this life and knowing there was a physical person in the Natural World who loved him, protected him and would root for him like Trey did in the Supernatural.

At least Jaden hoped Trey would. He'd never meet anyone from his hunts in the Natural world. What if he was delusional still and Yami Sennen thought he was a total stalker freak? Whatever, Jaden dismissed, he was too joyous and too certain to worry about it. There'd be a convention soon, with Yami, and Jaden would punch himself in the gut if he didn't go and try to make himself known. He would try to know the fantastic people in his dreams could be real people here who loved him.

* * *

Ryou squirmed, found his feet, and sprawled on the couch gathered the blanket up closer as he pawed his face. Yami had called yesterday. Yami was Jenzar. That was all Ryou had gotten before Bakura left.

These things happened. He'd resigned himself to it. When you put two competitive soul types, especially predators, next to each other these things were bound to happen. Yugi was a Faen and Bakura was a class of human bodied Seer whatever way you wanted to word it. They were meant to get on like two cats in a sack. The only conduit which joined them was Ryou and sometimes even he wasn't quite sure why that was.

Bakura did this, vanished, and got hurt or pissed someone off or evaded taxes or looked into plane tickets to places that didn't extradite and Ryou was there. He was a Ferryman, fatally in love, but more than once he'd asked himself what was the point to it. Practically speaking he kept others safe by being a martyr but as a human being, as a soul, Ryou had to ask himself on occasion if Bakura, fucked up as he was, ever actually, really, loved Ryou in a normal human capacity. Yugi doubted it, loudly, Yugi who was a supportive and reasonable if an eccentrically independent human being had talked Ryou out of Bakura four hundred times during high school. Seers must've had an additive, some addictive substance, because here Ryou was, twenty, sleeping on the couch waiting to see if his boyfriend was coming home willingly or if he was at another damn hospital.

Ryou and Yugi never made guesses about where Bakura went. It could be anywhere. They'd heard everything. He'd been gone for three days once only to find out he'd been with a cousin, eating ice cream, and on another separate occasion he'd been stealing taxi rides and beating up guys in the park like some homeless bandit. Maybe that was a lie, Ryou never saw these things, and Bakura did have a history of exaggeratedly bold faced lies so truthfully Ryou had no idea what he did or wasn't capable of. Bakura was black water: Ryou still didn't know how deep it went and still had yet to map out the edges.

Now Yami was Jenzar. Ryou had only meet Yugi since Jenzar's disappearance in about the 1600s and he had no memory of his past lives, for the sake of his crumpled sanity, but he knew Champions had reputations. He knew how this worked. He knew Yugi might take Bakura's shit for his sake but Yami's number one obligation was to Yugi. This could get messy and apparently Bakura thought so enough to take up and leave.

With Cassidia gone a new Seer Queen would be assigned to Earth which meant whatever Seers were hiding on Earth during the destruction, like the Children of Lilith, would be assigned a new Queen. Knowing the Seers there'd probably be a power struggle over it. There always was if the Seers had an excuse to fight over anything especially since the Children of Lilith liked to claim independence from the chain of command. Bakura was good at staying out of it but that was only when it suited him. It worked for Bakura to stay on the side lines working the systems. Had Bakura found some benefit to entering the fight? Or had something else grabbed his attention?

For now there was nothing Ryou could do but wait a little, pulling his knees to his chest and watching the waters. Somehow he sensed that if he went searching right now he would find neither head nor tail of his charge. He would have to wait till Bakura re-emerged on his radar. Ryou had followed him across centuries, wanted or not, and he knew by now when was the time to start looking and when was the moment to wait watching the home front.

* * *

The Hive had been alive for them to celebrate. Fire and sweat, laughter and skin, the primal nearly savage celebrations of warrior races back from victory had consumed the coliseum and given the opportunity every Reaper peeling off duty or returning from their hunts had taken the chance to join the festivities. Reapers were like that: fought hard, partied hard. Yami may as well have been floating, sunk in a cotton cacoon in Paris, burrowed into the gooey seclusion of Yugi's bedding amongst all the traces of Yugi's scent with the Faen's slickly naked body reposed against his. As Yami came back into himself, soul returning, he could still hear Nephele laughing and see Yusei smiling. Then the Faen turned in his arms, mewled, and aware of it the Champion felt the memories of the party fade back for the new day. Till, appearing to stir more quickly than Yami himself could, Yugi unfolded the quilt back down his hips and squirmed a moment later.

"Hmm," Yami moaned, arm hooking round his waist.

"Got to get up," Yugi mumbled gently, leaning back to kiss Yami's brow briskly before shimming the rest of the way out of his groggy grip.

"Why?" the Champion whined.

"Gym," the Faen whispered, tugging the blankets back up around Yami snugly as he elaborated, "back in a bit Baby."

"Yugi," Yami complained, straining himself onto his elbow and forcing sleep out of his eyes as the Faen rifled through the dresser. "It's like…seven in the morning. Forget it."

"No," the petite lithe figure insisted languidly slipping up a taunt pair of shorts. "I'll be back in a little bit. You sleep. I'll come back to bed and make breakfast and stuff later."

"Why?" He floundered.

"Yami, honey," Yugi sighed, dragging his shirt on. "I love you and I'll come back and cuddle but I gotta go workout for a bit. I'm a freak. Blame my core."

"What do you mean?" He supposed more reasonably slumping back on the mattress as he watched his beauty dress. There was something evanescently regal about Yugi's motion of slender creamy limbs regardless of the century. Yami remembered, on the back of his lids, watching Yugi crown himself with sapphires and tighten corsets on occasion as a Queen or a King somewhere far from Earth.

"Faen Core," he explained, falling back on the edge of the mattress to slip on his sneakers. "We slept so much yesterday and I barely need much sleep to begin with. I'm pumped with energy. If I don't work out I'll be hyper and unsettled all day. There's too much gas in the tank. It's making me spaz."

"I could take you in every position known to man?" Yami suggested playfully and the Faen cackled.

"Yeah, in your dreams," he snorted, but suggested mildly. "Shower with me when I get home?"

"_Hell_yeah," the author baulked, "best idea ever."

"Good," Yugi laughed, "go crash. I'll be back."

"Your core always like this?" Yami inquired. "Crappy sleep and all that?"

"I go to gym every day," Yugi revealed languidly in confession, "burn five hundred calories in a session, take sedatives to crash, my metabolism is through the roof, I'm always hungry but I eat like a bird, and I can't focus unless I'm doing five things at once. I'm a pain in the ass."

"I remember," he groaned, as the symptoms came wafting back to him. "I always think you're a workaholic or a devoted mum or something and then I figure out that, nah, even when you have nothing to do I still can't slow you down."

"Sleep," the smaller insisted. "You deserve it."

"I might go get some stuff from my place," Yami decided languidly, "I didn't bring anything yesterday."

"That's okay," Yugi consented, "bring toiletries and stuff. I think it's pretty safe to assume you're going to be over for a few days."

"Few months," he snorted. "What are we going to do about my place?"

"I don't know," the Faen sighed casually, "I can't think right now. Ask me later, we'll figure it out then, doesn't matter."

"Kay," he yawned, stretching to drag himself together and up. "You sure you're okay with me being here?"

"You kidding?" Yugi laughed. "Yami, I don't want you out of my sight for the next three lifetimes. I don't give a fuck about rents and houses and dressers right now. Sides, I want to cool my core a little if I'm going to get used to not being in charge all the time anymore before we make any plans."

"Like I could ever not give you want you want," Yami teased, and smiling the Faen fell back onto the bed.

"I know," he grinned, "you're a push over when I bat my eyelashes but I've been playing big brother here and I've got to let you be a hubby again."

"Hmm," Yami exhaled heavily, contented. "That sounds awesome."

There was something beautiful about Yugi pushing off the bed, smiling, kissing his cheek and dissipating down the stairs. There was something wonderful about being a partner, equal, about having enough experience and power to protect Yugi the way he wanted to. There was also something equally bizarre in the charming way they spoke of all this. Yugi's casual flick for dialoguing about the supernatural hadn't changed at all and there was an eccentric element to that.

Was this what life would be like from now on? A mingling of managing the peculiarities of their natural habits juxtaposed with the pleasure of knowing, holding, _being one_ with Yugi for the rest of his life? There was something so natural about how they'd shifted back to lovers, as if Yami had lived here for years, but at once he seemed to hardly know Yugi's gestures and ticks. It was startlingly new, exciting, and anciently comforting.

'_Weakling_.'

Yami jumped, startled, it wasn't vocal rather the word seemed to waft up from his subconscious without any permission of his own thought pattern. He could feel Jenzar stir inside him, equally confused, and bamboozled Yami tried to fathom where the parasitic non-him non-Jenzar idea came from.

'_Fuck them._' It ordered sultrily with _images_ that amounted to suggestions of the comfort to be found in dominance and the swoons of submission that could be drawn from Atreyu.

He baulked, it was graphic, totally out of his focus or input and hackles rising there was some itching excitement in his legs to follow Yugi down stairs. He kept himself grounded, the front door slammed shut, the urge faded and Jenzar's presence pushed at the third peculiar voice rather roughly as though he was smashing something unsightly into a box. There was no fear in Jenzar, just impatience, near embarrassment which Yami felt himself and with the apologetics of a child the Champion Jenzar shrugged at Yami and dismissed the voice.

"What was that?" Yami whispered.

'_Don't worry about it,_' Jenzar seemed to say inside him, and some memory or another niggled at the back of Yami's mind till he shrugging let it go.

Mind quiet Yami had little choice other than to slip on his pants from yesterday, drive home barefooted and pack up the knickknacks of a life. He could always come back, he knew that, he wasn't terribly worried and checking his email, finding a clean pair of jeans, rolling his shoulders Yami found a new sanctity in himself.

* * *

His house felt so… magically void. Yugi's protection box buzzed sending pulses through the space but compared to what Yami was sure he could do it felt so minor. His presence invaded this home, truly, but it was so light footed compared the strength of self in the magic of Yugi's home. He couldn't leave it like this, unguarded and naked, so driven by strange instinct Yami dumped his bag in the lounge, freshly dressed, and found the windows.

With his index finger Yami found himself moving without thought or plan, more motivated by memory, and crimson humming with life just under his skin drew sharp crosses in the panes of glass. On every pane of glass, in every window, on both floors till while he consciously felt foolishly religious some prompt from his core kept him moving. In each slashing motion of his hand he could feel the house boarding up, feel it securing like a fortress, and in a few short motions his own core seemed to triple what Yugi had given him as a shield.

What Yami, what Jenzar, could do so quickly in a few moments with little equipment was astounding really and as he threw his bag into the car Yami had to confess he did, just a little bit, feel like a badass knowing his magic would work to defend his home in his absence. It wouldn't achieve as much as the spells upon Yugi's home in the long run but Yami could already feel himself detaching somewhat from this safe, normal, place and sinking more into Yugi's world without an anchor back to the Natural world he'd been born into. The spells he'd placed on his home weren't meant for much rather just to keep him from coming back to vandalism and destruction. The spells he had placed on Yugi's home last night and would lay more of every day were bricks and mortar to his real focus: keeping the Faen safe. It took a startling priority in the forefront and background of his mind simultaneously. Yami didn't resent it, he embraced it. He could _finally_ do something useful.

* * *

He beat Yugi home and stepping over the threshold had an odd sensation of taking in a breath after holding one. He liked this little artificial fairy grove Yugi had built. It was the kind of treasure trove a dragon like Jenzar Fraveous could nest in. Somehow the imagery and motifs of a dragon seemed more fitting in this fairy tale than a Prince. He took a seat, found one of Yugi's million strewn books and waited for the Faen to return.

"Hey?" Yugi called testing.

"Hey!" Yami replied kicking off the couch.

"This where I say: '_Honey I'm home'_?" He teased.

"That's my line." Yami countered as he met Yugi playing with the front door and its multiplicity of locks.

The Faen giggled, soft, and as he leant into the stain glass of the front door Yami could see the sweat trickling down the backs of his thighs. Beads of light on warm, delectable, skin. That box Jenzar had made rattled, the Champion noticed, and Yami himself wasn't quite sure what was happening but then it crackled- slammed- open somewhere inside his head.

"Ah!" Yugi gasped, cheek pressed into the glass, as Yami bent his arm behind his back expertly overlapping the smaller body with his. "Yami!"

"What's this? New meat, are you?" He purred into the elfin ear, chuckling, tongue dragging behind the curve as he considered the Faen.

Yami felt himself squirm in his own head, half in his body half out, control over it utterly lost as the entity from the back of his conscious stole his vocal cords. Jenzar swore, Yami floundered, and that third presence inside his head held Yugi captive against the door.

"W-who?" Yugi fumbled. "You're not- _Oh!_"

The thing inside Yami's form, stealing his limbs, scrapped its teeth along Yugi's neck tongue lathing up a tendon as he purred into the captured Faen holding the struggling body placid.

"Jenzar and the newest body have no idea how to handle you when you're being so independent." He whispered hips digging against Yugi's arse forcing the Faen's into the wood. "Love the shorts by the way Trey."

"_You?_" Yugi stumbled, laughing, swearing and kicking out in a squirm against the overbearing body. "_Pharaoh?_I should have known you'd get out as soon as Yami and Jenzar merged back together."

"Jenzar can't hold me in a time out." The Pharaoh snorted. "I'm the one with all the teeth here. Now," he purred, "you promised our current reincarnation a shower with this hot little body."

"Yeah, promised _Yami_," the Faen warned firmly but still, to Yami's surprise, seemed utterly unafraid. "That offer only extends to him and Jenzar. Not you."

"What are you going to do? Tell me off?" Pharaoh laughed. "I'll throw you over my shoulder and strip you for all I care."

"Don't make me get Heba you tyrant." Yugi shot back a little tenser but underneath the nearly parental impatience was the sound of something bordered, wavering, along the cusp of amused to aroused.

"Oh do," Pharaoh moaned, hips' grinding against Yugi's trapped form illustratively. "He's always _so_tight when I hold him down."

Pharaoh was teasing, insulting, Heba. Yami could tell that much and locked back behind this personality in his own mind the author was forced to settle beside a frustrated Jenzar as the Champion shook his head. It dawned on him slowly, with snippets of memory flashing over his awareness, that this was one of his past lives! A personality, a version of him, between Jenzar who was the eternal, original, and core self and now when he was Yami. A past life who had hijacked Yami's body with its own particularly distinct personality and was now taking it for a joy ride to assault and insult one of Yugi and Atreyu's, past lives.

"Does Yami know I'm okay?" Yugi checked and Pharaoh snorted.

"What do I care?"

"_Does Yami know I'm okay?"_The Faen repeated smooth and firm.

"I'm giving him a show," Pharaoh sighed impatiently. "I don't think he and Jenzar really know how to touch you."

"Alright," Yugi snorted as if a mother who was coming through with a punishment to a belligerent child, "I warned you. I'm getting Heba."

Yami could feel the Pharaoh grin beamingly against Yugi's neck and to his fascination the author watched as the Faen became lax against the door, as if his body was empty, and then on a sharp inhale the slender form appeared to refill with life. Yami could feel this tyrant, this Pharaoh, surge with arousal as Yugi's body reanimated and with new strength started struggling.

"Get off me you abomination!"

"Your _Majesty_," Pharaoh cooed into what must've been Heba's neck rolling his hips into the boy,  
"how is my favourite little King of Murasi this life?"

_Murasi! _Yami recalled it instantly as the planet where Yugi had warned Jenzar and Atreyu had gone mad for six hundred years. Hadn't Murasi been the planet where Jenzar's incarnations had been, what had Yugi called it, some demon war god? Hadn't Murasi been the planet where Atreyu's reincarnations had been a procession of wicked emperors and empresses, consorts to tyrants?

'_Yep,_' Jenzar sighed, chin in hand from where they were proverbially hog tied at the back of Yami's mind. _'In those six hundred years the strongest of those wicked incarnations were Heba Zaykru and the Pharaoh Drakasen the War God._'

'_Will they be alright?_' Yami panicked.

'_They'll be fine,_' Jenzar snorted, '_Pharaoh would never hurt him, not really, some past lives are just… really loud and sometimes you just can't hold them back if they have an opinion._'

_'So I have to get used to sharing my body?_' Yami baulked.

'_Just a bit,_' The Champion placated the author, '_mainly with this bastard._'

Outside Yami's temporary prison he could feel his body, feel the struggle of Heba in the Pharaoh's vice hold and hear the grasping, groaning, little escapes of venom rolling out of the Faen.

"Take your wretched consciousness somewhere else!" Heba ordered starkly. "Unhand me!"

"Why ever would I do that?" Pharaoh supposed, one hand curled tight enough to bruise round Heba's captured wrist as the thumb of its twin hooked in the hem of Yugi's shorts. "You look so ravishing. Atreyu's left you barely dressed little Queen."

"_King_." Heba spat as a reminder.

"With your wife, your courtiers, your human peasants maybe," Pharaoh whispered darkly, "but when you're underneath me you're whatever I want you to be. Remember?"

"I think you had best check that assumption of yours, it's dangerous," Heba warned.

"Oh? Has four hundred years been too long?" He pondered. "I think you and Atreyu have gotten far too used to ruling unattended. Shall I have to bend you over and remind this lovely new body how you answer to me?"

"Try it." The smaller rasped. "I dare you."

"Well then," he chuckled, burying his face into Heba's thick locks to inhale the pungent scent clarified from a morning of physical exertion that was heady, pheromone like, rich…

* * *

1 I haven't seen enough of GX to specify who I would pair Yusei with so instead I called his Faen _Scarlet Eisendra _which is a play on the 'Crimson Dragon' so you can imagine that's Jack or whoever you like.

2 Ammit- was the Egyptian composite god-beast which ate the hearts of those who were judged impure in the afterlife. In this case he's the God/Supervisor/Father of the Sequesters (the secret keepers who make sure that the secrets of the supernatural universe don't escape to the wrong people at the wrong points sometimes using violent means)

3 Troy- the Greek walled city which held off armies but was eventually broken into, brunt and sacked in the Trojan war. In This case it is also the Astral home of the Sequesters

4 Yeah… I told you some of you would hate Drea. Make no mistake there's a reason _'Drea'_ is one letter away from '_Dread_'

5 I wanted all the astral characters to be a spread of YGO characters from across the seasons. So they are, in order:  
Amar Seirramoura (Champion) = Rishid Ishtar  
Denn-Elec Flenrous (Amar's Faen) = Marik Ishtar (both in a Hotel in the Middle East)  
Seviticus Prodius (Champion) = Raphael  
Vegas Helldreem (Sev's Faen)= Valon (both in Australia currently)  
Nephele Austriamehre = Leon von Schroeder (as mentioned in chapter 15? Dated Yami)  
Morphis Horus = Jaden Yuki  
(Without physical forms on Earth- Timaeus, Drea and Yusei)

6 Yep, one of Yami's past lives, over than Jenzar, has just hijacked the body and with that we're about to skip into a very special change next chapter I think some of you will really like

Okay, I'm exhausted, I'm off to cause trouble. Love you guys!


	20. Reintroductions

Hey guys~  
Heads up, I'm working currently on a new fic called "_Gambit_" that should be up for fortnightly posting soon and I would love to hear your opinions on a couple of questions bellow if anyone's interested.

Also- Lemon for this fic coming up in the next two chapters~

* * *

Chapter 20: _Reintroductions _

Yugi could see Heba's memories. See a version of himself as sharp eyed, gold plated, crowned in brilliant opals and so contrastingly delicate he might shatter if held too tightly. Yugi could remember the Pharaoh holding him too tight, squeezing him up against his own body, wanting to feel him break and finding nothing inside that form but indestructible steel which pushed back at Pharaoh's every summons. That passionate strength in a fragile glassy casing had sealed Heba's fate and made him stunningly delicious to the Pharaoh Yugi realized. His senses, his magical radar, could feel the Pharaoh ripple with cuttingly deep desire when Heba's body, Yugi's surrendered body, bucked under his hands and struggled to showcase that strength the war god had always adored.

There was love in the Pharaoh, an odd shape, shade and texture but sure enough it was love as Yugi recognised it. It was just another warp of the same thing under a new pseudonym for a new lifetime. There was love in Heba too, that was why Yugi was happy to drift half out of control of himself and let the past him take over against Pharaoh because the petite, vicious, King of Murasi had such a secret longing for the song that quelled silently from Pharaoh's being. Heba adored the vibe of him, adored how the Pharaoh unwrapped him and tamed him and ate him in much the same indescribable way Atreyu would always melt under Jenzar's fingers, his voice, whatever shape he took.

Pharaoh's hand ran up Heba's torso fingers spreading to grasp round the slender neck in a vice. Holding Heba crushed back into him, hooking his squirming mermaid forcefully, making Heba flutter gasping and nearly helpless as Pharaoh's twin hand slipped slickly over his bare navel to rip at the taunt shorts pulled up his thighs. Heba moaned, felt the drag of nails following the paths of his body spreading parasitic heat like some infused virus carried in the Pharaoh's touch.

"Mine," Pharaoh spat, fingers flexing round the delicate neck in demonstration hardly driving away the air more emphasising his grip on the reigns. "You are mine."

"Pagan idol," Heba insulted weakly, breathless as he threw his head back into Pharaoh's shoulder to escape the press of his hand and snatching at him like some thief Pharaoh bit, tasting, brushing their lips together.

Pharaoh warped Yami's voice but it was still at the core _Yami's_ baritone singing lusty rasps to them. It was still rich, thick and good. There was fear in Yugi at the violence of it but only enough to exhilarate him and he rather hoped that inside his own mind, experiencing his first possession, Yami wasn't panicking for him. Yugi was used to his incarnations escaping, used to hearing their voices in his head and feeling their opinions cluck from dawn to dusk like a radio he couldn't switch off. Yugi was used to not being alone in his body, he was used to these things that were him and whose feelings he experienced just as intensely as their memories but Yami wasn't. Still Yugi wouldn't stop this, he couldn't bear too, his incarnations had spent so long with no one to talk to and no one to whom they could honestly expose themselves to that they were starved for recognition and attention. Hopefully Yami would forgive Yugi a little weakness. Just like Heba he wanted this.

This pair in particular was insatiable Yugi remembered. They were all posture really though just harmless things playing with each other. Pharaoh had been dangerous once but trapped inside reincarnations since he'd retired a lot of his threatening capabilities for emergency use. Either way, truly dangerous or not, Yugi, Heba or any of Atreyu's subsequent or previous reincarnations were safe. As for Heba well…

Heba fluttered, inhaled sharply as kissing him viciously the Pharaoh tugged Yugi's shorts down Heba's thighs contemptuously. They were stuck on Heba's parted thigh, scrunched halfway down his tangy sweat sheened legs, as the Faen kept his feet on the carpet to try and stand solidly on his own even in the Pharaoh's hold. Heba had to prop himself on the balls of his feet to do so, to maintain some solidarity but even that felt compromised. He was at the mercy of the Champion, on the hook, which was a startlingly vulnerable but secure place to be as the air tickled his skin.

Pharaoh's hands smoothed, foraging, over the exposed skin to creamy, tender, inner heat and darted between the Faen's legs recklessly to brush the smaller creature's secretly burning desire. Heba moaned, couldn't help it, Pharaoh's lips bruising into his. He soaked it up, the fire that calmed Yugi's seas, the intensity of it all reassuring that wounded brittleness of theirs that wanted to be reminded, comforted, that _he_ was home and _he_had caught them.

"You're _wet _for me." Pharaoh announced, almost sighing molten air at the friction, his lips barely off Heba's as he found his captured prize's glassy gaze.

His fingers tightened round the Faen's neck, palm caused electric friction and whining into Pharaoh's next bitter kiss trapped in his snare Heba struggled not to moan under the coaxing dazzle of his touch.

It was so hot it burned and that slick cool of Yugi's core started to bubble like a pool under the midday sun when their energies mingled. His magic responded to Yami's in a way Yugi was sure the Champion's current self didn't yet appreciate the depth of. This wasn't just physical anymore. Yugi's whole entity was rigged with subconscious triggers for this soul that no one else knew how to unlock. The Champion, the Pharaoh's touch were keys in the locks of his mind, body and soul that had almost rusted shut. Yugi, Heba and Atreyu felt no desire for any other signature, unfolded for no one, could not even contemplate feeling love for another under effort but for this soul that chased them. It was chemical the reaction that split their body open with pleasure and Yugi was so glad he'd waited nine lifetimes in chastity because all else would've been a poor approximation.

Pharaoh's tongue weaselled, a viper, past the sewn shut gate of his lips and brought a volcanic torrent spinning venom into Heba. Dry ice hitting skin metaphorically the Faen shuddered weakly, falling back into the clutch of the Champion which kept him from sagging, and tightly fusing them Heba wanted to push more into him. His neck twisted, lips motioning into Pharaoh's, supping desperately for their touch.

"Suck," Pharaoh ordered, fingers flexing round Heba's throat as he pressed the pads of two digits against barely parted lips that were damp from the passion of their kissing and the rough thrust his tongue had just made into the tight mouth.

Heba considered it, glazed, exhaling onto the tips of the Pharaoh's, of Yami's, nails obviously caught between consent and an insult. Yugi saw Heba's memories. Heba had made a deal with this devil that had secured him a six hundred year reign at the price of his returned love and Heba's disobedient urges to scorn Pharaoh prickled at the direct command. He was chained by how disastrously good Pharaoh made him feel, how weak, and he rather resented it. Pharaoh was impatient however and revoking his chance to let the Faen comply dug his fingers, hooking and curling, into the Faen's mouth regardless. Shivering with a dizzy, grunting, sound Heba couldn't help as his tongue brushed along them for the taste. Heba's memories of the Pharaoh as Yugi saw them, vague as they were with the other trying to bundle them like trinkets, told him that Heba was in no real danger and conversely rather liked things this way. He rather liked being conquered. It must've been a novelty for him.

For his part Atreyu would allow Jenzar any liberty, as Yugi would now give Yami or attempt to, because this creature would always catch them from any height they might fall. Rough or not Pharaoh didn't seek any tears from Heba just to sate his own hunger for the other which, unsurprisingly, made them all ripple with want after four centuries painfully alone.

Pharaoh drew his hand away slipping moist fingers between himself and Heba's arched back as the Faen's palms found the cool surface of the stain glass panel set in the door. Hardly wet, drying, fingers searched to brush and finding what they wanted circled the tight unyielding ring of muscle. A thousand nerve ending sprung to life, a million lifetimes of memories followed immediately, and heady under the memories Yugi's logic tried to fight for an anchor.

"Ah!" Heba stiffed whispering conspiratorially as if he'd forgotten altogether to hate the Pharaoh which he quite had now that he wanted him too much to push or struggle. "That won't be enough."

It was a practical, realistic, concern which was funny for Yugi to try and explain to a past incarnation and his Pharaoh_. Don't stop, never stop_, was sighing on repeat in their head but they weren't a girl this time and they didn't drip hungrily without help. Spit was not, reasonably speaking, the most reliable lubricant.

"Funny," Pharaoh teased unhelpfully, rubbing slowly as the tip of his digit pried. "Feels like you want me just enough."

"_Ngh,_" Heba whined, an almost contented sigh escaping brokenly as to his surprise the Pharaoh's intrusive touch sunk rather uninhibited to the first knuckle breaching him with a stomach dropping rush. "_Oh!_"

He flexed, constricting and lazing in pleasure at the friction. Sound dragged out of him, his fingers worrying the door, calves quaking on his tiptoes, Pharaoh arm holding him aloft. They'd almost forgotten this the thrill of being breached and invaded and parted and taken. The feel of a Champion ever so slowly inching inside them…

"You love every-" Pharaoh wiggled forcing the intruder another knuckle deeper and strangling a sound from the Faen, "-single second of this."

"_Yes_." Heba moaned hand fumbling behind him to trace the shape of Pharaoh's cheek under their palm. This was Yami's body, Yami's past self, Jenzar's incarnation… Yugi fell to giddy pieces right along with Heba and no resilient, resistant, strength propped them up but Pharaoh's grip.

Pharaoh sunk his finger to the hilt, a mystery Heba couldn't imagine pulling off with so little to grease his entrance, but the Faen's body parted, air kicked out of him, and that contrasting sensation of rightful wrongness brought another gooey wave of molten heat down the tendons of his thighs. The Pharaoh leant Heba back into him. Heba's wrists hooked, folding behind him round the other's neck, and smoothing his hand down the Faen's navel the Champion stroked languidly at his aching arousal. Heba swooned, mewling, and the Pharaoh coaxed him between his hands. Fingers prying, thrusting, Heba into on one side his strokes working their body on the other to complete controlled submission in his grasp.

Heba arched his back, grinding back into Pharaoh's jerky little thrusts and let them rattle him. A second, barely coated, finger tugged him apart making the Faen groan into the smooth bottoming out of one deep thrust. Yugi could feel their knees quake uselessly. The stroke between their thighs should've, Yugi pestered, been more tempting than the penetration between their curves but…_Oh_…

"Nhh-Ah!" Heba bucked.

Leaning back and letting Pharaoh enter them, letting Yami and Jenzar back inside them, was the real pleasure here. Atreyu remembered that memory which Yugi had called back to the surface of his imagination so many times: _the window sill_and they all of them almost crumbled groaning.

"Hmm…" Another procession of soft, tight, little purrs escaped.

Gooey, like at midnight with only his own hands, Yugi felt all the parts of himself rebound off each other like redirected fragments of light interloping. Yami's touch, Pharaoh's touch, was homely and timeless and constant in all his drifting. This was more satisfying than even his own hands and it made Heba rock on the balls of their feet to rut back. Atreyu called up that wafting imagery which made even that oldest part of Yugi weak. The window sill, that first time when Jenzar had been bound up inside them to conceive Morphis for the first time with the Champions shoulders under Atreyu's curled hands as he rode him.

"Ngh," Heba's lips pursed, Pharaoh chuckled and the King struggled to contain himself from caving into his own contracting vocal chords.

"Back to my arms," Pharaoh hissed against his earlobe, scrapping the skin between his teeth. "Where you belong and where you'll stay. I don't care how long Jenzar got us kidnapped for you purr for me when I take you and I'll touch you just the same as always. I expect you to fold like this for me and I'll_ make _you."

"Ooh," Heba was giddy at that, moaning slow, even Trey swooned back a little into a pile with Yugi at the back of their head under the possessiveness lacing those syllables. That was a promise they'd missed. That assurance of '_I will catch you always. I will save you always.'_ had been the most crippling absence to face.

Heba's fingers curled in Pharaoh's thick hair, tossing his chin back to kiss wetly at the man's firm jaw and cheeks while he squirmed in his hands.

"Kiss me," Heba pleaded and growling Pharaoh plastered against him. "_Ah!_"

There was some victory in shuddering, moaning, against Pharaoh's lips but containing enough of the sound to not seem so totally lost in his arms when Heba reached rapture. He spasmed, thighs sweaty, calves quaking and Heba's arms fell back before him to slump against the fractured golden light of the stain glass panel set in the door. Pharaoh's fingers slipped very languidly out of him and still panting Yugi felt his muscles ache as he came back into total control of his body to let Heba ebb back into his mind.

"Yugi?" Yami rasped, the author seemed to quake and sounded rather frightened.

"_Hmm,_" Yugi cooed shaking on his legs, "welcome back Captain."

"Are you okay?" He whispered arms coming against him to bundle Yugi back around to face him on trembling legs.

"I'm epic." The Faen grinned playfully up into that handsome face. "You like Pharaoh?"

"I…" he laughed. "That was one of my past lives?"

"Oh yeah," Yugi nodded, "they're kinda wild."

"He just possessed me." Yami snorted amused but mildly horrified. "It was _weird!_Are they inside you like that? More of them? All awake?"

"Yeah," he whispered a little beside himself with awe. "Never had anyone to talk to though since I was sixteen cause they scare Ryou too much when they pop in unannounced."

"That didn't hurt did it?" He fretted next.

"Did it look like it?" Yugi purred tossing his arms round the Champion's stunned neck. "It was fun. Heba's like an itch I can't scratch unless you're here. I feel _really_good now."

"Yeah?" Yami softened mildly at the reassurance that all was well and Yugi suspected the author might even be proud of himself when he chuckled. "Going to have to get used to that."

"They help," he promised, "it's like roleplaying. They're all part of you and you get better at controlling them. It's like an engine. When all the parts of you are happy you're great and if something happens some of them are better at dealing with stuff so you can lean on their memories."

Yugi knew he was beaming like a lunatic but he couldn't help himself. Years of secrets he'd kept were tumbling out unafraid to this dashingly handsome man who erased all those ugly duckling feelings he'd had bottled inside him. He could be himself with Yami, he could be all Atreyu Damestaire, no secrets and no masks just himself. It was so refreshing, so freeing, that even though the nerves of lazing his paranoia were pronounced he wanted to run full throttle to this. He wasn't sure yet if Yami appreciated how truly, deeply, Yugi adored him for taking this weight he'd been carrying alone. Yugi didn't think he could ever word it just right to explain.

His core thrummed at the giddiness. When he was joyous to this extent it seemed to think he needed more energy so it pumped him full of magic and Yugi was sure he'd be hyper for days if Yami was around much longer. His stomach dipped however, lurched even, at just the thought of the author not being beside him tonight like he had been last night. Nothing could be better than how Yami held him like he was a present and had nestled when Yugi nuzzled in his tossing.

"Shower?" Yugi proposed trying to downplay his own eagerness but from the wicked grin Yami's face he supposed it must've twinkled out in his eyes. He almost wanted to bounce on his feet as he tempted: "I promised you one."

"You did," Yami smirked eagerly at the prospect, relaxing as Yugi lay into him. "Then some breakfast?"

"Hell yeah," he promised. He wanted to bake scones suddenly on a whim. There was something he loved about producing sustenance for people in his home which he put down to Carolyn. "Did you bring clothes and everything?"

"Yep," the Champion answered, almost wavering to a frown when he continued cautiously. "Not sure what you want to do about my place and your place though? Did you have a think?"

"Yeah," Yugi murmured, "I want you here-" he caught himself when he realized he must've sounded brutish and shrugged, "-or I want to be there maybe? Whatever you think..."

It was odd to hand over a choice. Then Yugi considered it might be too fast, too young and too stupid a suggestion but it had been _so_ long since they'd lived with Jenzar. Yugi was a kid with a toy he never wanted to return. Atreyu, his oldest self, was sure they could co-exist happily like they had a million times before and Yugi nearly stumped himself at the ridiculousness of discussing something so dully practical and real world. He liked giving Yami an out to say this was too much. The author was still adjusting to this insane snippet of living Yugi was transposed into by force with all its dangers and he _deserved_a way out. Yugi's fingers played along the back of his neck, feeling the cusp where his hair thinned on the skin, and found it strange not to be barking orders but rather turning the remote over.

"You don't mind?" Yami's smile was so cautiously exuberant Yugi gelled back into submissive acceptance that all was well in his world finally. The author wanted him, wasn't sick of his bizarre ticks yet. "I mean, hate to say it, Jenz aside I'm big chunk older and you've never shared and you don't have to have me here if you don't want or you're not ready. You like your space I think."

"You like quiet." Yugi agreed. "I feel kinda stupid, clingy I guess, but I really hate the idea of you having to go somewhere else. I want to have you there when I wake up."

"I want to be here," Yami stressed, taking him by his elbows tightly in emphasis. "I fucking love this house. It's gorgeous. I want to part of the aquarium."

"Part of the antique shop?" He laughed unable to resist leaning up into his tip toes letting his disposed shorts sag round his ankles.

"Yeah," the author nodded arms settling round his waist, "I'm thinking we keep my place though."

"It's cleaner," Yugi joked but soured by the practicality in his fantasy nodded; "but yeah if you need somewhere to run off too if this doesn't work we're going to need it."

"Pft," he snorted, "I am way too hooked on you for this not to work. Just blame Jenz. I want us to have a safe house, you know? If something breaks in here I want to know I can hide you somewhere else just in case and for now it's not really a problem to pay two rents so…why not?"

Yugi's insides glowed as Yami rather bashfully tumbled off into a Champion's nervous first attempt at explaining his security plans. Nothing could've come out of his mouth at that moment which would've been better and nodding Yugi was keen to follow suit with the idea.

"I like your place." He added offhandedly. "This joint is such a fucking mess I don't know how I'm going to fit you in."

"We'll clean." Yami shrugged. "Doesn't matter we'll figure that out tomorrow."

"You bring Coco?" Yugi cooed temple slumping to rest on Yami's cradling clavicle as the Champion mapped him a little, taking time to savour the rare treat of holding him so freely.

"Coco?" he mumbled.

"Your cat?" Yugi snorted playfully, quirking his glance up.

"Oh shit!" Yami spat reeling. "Right! I have one of those! _Fuck!_"

Yugi collapsed into giggles. Fucking spaz. Trust Jenzar Fraveous to forget he had a cat. No wonder Trey never let him baby sit for long. How had Morph made it to adulthood so many times? How Jenzar had made it to adulthood so many times unattended was actually an equally pressing question.

"Heh," the Champion sighed good humouredly, nuzzling the top of his head where it had slumped back. "I _love_ you."

Yugi would never get sick of hearing that. It plucked at his heart strings in a way that perhaps Yami didn't comprehend and waters rippling, the tempest calmed, he clutched the author sweetly. Yami was still so excited to get away with saying it romantically without consequence or guilt and it was glorious that way when he said it like a school boy sneaking into Yugi's window.

"I love you too," he promised intently, flowing with the truth of it till his core sparkled. "I _so _glad it's you."

That was Yugi's prized compromise. His saving grace in this was the final wondrous truth that two perfect souls were actually one in the same and he had no hard choice to make between them. Yugi would say it over and over he thought, for years yet, just in awe. Did Yami understand how relieved he was that the author he'd lost himself with was not some phantom Yugi had to part with? Yes, Yami was Jenzar and that was a precious thing in itself given his eternal tenderness but that in this life knowing Yami Sennen was someone he didn't have to share was better. Yami was _Yugi's_ not Atreyu's or Heba's but all for Yugi and when he was so used to sharing his sense of self, his identity, to have something that belonged just to Yugi Motou was_ fucking_ perfect.

* * *

"One cat," Yami announced hair still damp from the shower as he deposited a disgruntled Lord Coco in Yugi's awaiting lap. "He's not happy with me."

"I'm sorry Majesty," Yugi fussed into the furry face as shunning his owner-come-slave Coco sprawled over the Faen for a belly rub back leg kicking Yugi's fingers, "he forgets his own name sometimes. You and I ain't got no chance of getting him to remember we exist."

"I put it down to a long term case of scatter brain," the author chuckled, sinking into the small patch of space between Yugi and the armrest for more of an excuse to press together. Yami seemed rather starved to gobble up every chance he could take to hold Yugi and the Faen had no interest in stopping him. "I had like three messages from my publishers too."

"What'd you forget now?" He teased.

"Convention tomorrow," Yami sighed. "You'd think nerds never slept."

"You have any idea how long my generation spends online?" Yugi snorted. "Of course we don't sleep. Where is it?"

"Middle of Tokyo," he shrugged. "They'll pay my parking which is a small mercy."

"Oh well," Yugi eased back into him, "we'll manage for a few hours."

"You want to come?" Yami prodded. "We could even call up Kaiba and take Mokuba if he wanted a day out of school."

"Are you kidding?" He laughed. "You're going to spoil Mookie silly. He'd dig the shit out of that. I won't embarrass you?"

"You have any idea how cool it'll be to answer questions with _Atreyu Damestaire_ chilling in the front row with _Cobalt's_ little brother?" Yami snorted. "I'm going to feel like a _bad ass_knowing I get to take you home and seeing your face."

Yugi felt himself colour, teeth scraping his lips and tried to keep any satisfaction off his face. It wasn't so much that he liked the world knowing about this dirty laundry, he didn't, but after spending so long kicking butt it was nice to get a little bit of fanfare even under the guise of a fictional character. Especially now he could associate those damn books with better things: with mistakes, with fate, with meeting this dashing little spaz-tard called Yami Sennen who acted like a high schooler over him.

Yugi remembered being thirteen. He remembered learning on the run to be fast footed, to juggle, to recover from tears at the drop of a hat, to be wild eyed and sleepless and still act normal. He remembered the maze he'd waded through to figure out who he was, the hallucinations, the voices inside him, the instincts and the sixth and seventh senses. He remembered learning his real name, he remembered the doctors and the tests and realizing slowly but surely that that untraceable face he recalled from every single incarnation was gone. He remembered realizing that all the strange things that had followed him from infancy had weight. He remembered realizing that Jenzar Fraveous was gone. That he was alone. That he was vulnerable.

Yugi could still remembered the way his stomach dropped through his pelvis like an avalanche when at sixteen he'd heard a girl in his class at Domino High say the words _'Atreyu Damestaire_'. He'd panicked thinking Seto and Ryou had betrayed him. He'd gone into damage control mode and had endured the palpitating of his heart the whole day through as he frantically tried to piece together who had let the lid off a four billion year conspiracy. He remembered finding _Trance_, the source of the epidemic breech in their secrecy. Yugi remembered realizing he'd been outed, that they'd all been outed, by a Reaper. The thought had been impossible for him to fathom. Some human, some man, had told an entire literate world and all the demons hiding in it who they were and what they did. Like in some old fable a human they had trusted, offered immortality to, had shared their sacred secrets and put their entire fairy world in jeopardy.

Yugi had coped with old eighties rock at the time. He'd had to reassure Seto and Ryou who were just a fierce and as reverted to primal survival mode. That was how they'd survived high school really, like soldiers running from hell hounds never able to stop thinking or checking. Yugi had been so angry at Yami, had been so terrified when the first possessed Seer had found his school or had possessed his classmates… He was worried he'd do a Buffy and burn down the school gym at prom or something. He'd had to move, leave his family, be Atreyu the commander and hide at Kaiba's mansion for months till he found a way to live with his own weapons rather than security cameras and guard details. He'd soured to bitterness and after the second book he'd been ready to show Atemu Pheramora, Yami Sennen, why there were only three Faens needed to protect the nine billion people approximately living on Earth.

That felt like an old miasma. Some foggy recollection distanced from him. The wound had been amputated and the sections of his life felt thoroughly divorced between the past and the present. Yugi had weathered the storm, done what he always did, and after a good kick in the teeth he had his prize for pulling the strings together. Jenzar was home. The Sequesters had cleared Yami of a security pact violation. His coven, his family, were safe and he could see his Grandpa again soon. He deserved to celebrate and Yami certainly did so maybe for the first time Yugi could take some real pleasure in all the flattering details of the books and the popularity of them…?

Faens, Champions, Reapers, Reaper Specialists, Reaper Knights, Watchers, Timers, Sequesters… All the soul types who remembered their past lives did a lot of hard yard for very little in return. They worked their asses off living two lives to keep order running on the front stage so the universe could play out its details. Yugi, Denn-Elec and Vegas protected the Veil for the population of a _planet_ between the three of them. All while keeping viciously maintained confidentiality on the issue. Maintaining a ruse that was the meaning of life in a way so, yeah, they deserved a little appreciation. A few teenagers who thought the _idea_ of their existence as a concept was cool.

"Good thing Drea's not a Sequester on Earth," Yugi muttered with a smile, "he'd thrash us for being so chill about it all here…"

"The books and stuff?" Yami nodded then as if on a whim he caught the tail of a memory. "He's good isn't he?"

"Drea?" Yugi snorted. "He's one of the best Sequesters in the universe. They used to rip him away from me, from us, to drag him off to planets in chaos. Poor thing's never really got a chance to settle down roots somewhere."

With a sigh Yugi slumped back into the couch at his trouble child the black sheep. Yami sighed and nodded thoughtfully in consent. Yami understood now, he knew, he'd been there for it. Yami and Yugi had one hell of a reputation between them for that matter but Drea was…He was Trey's conundrum really if they were honest. Morphis and Nephele found their feet alright and had patterns but Drea still seemed to be finding a pattern. He was fighting a current looking to scratch that insanely deep itch within him that ached to be loved.

"I think..." Yugi sighed, "Drea's so steady. He never changes. I think he wants someone to be steady with him. I mean you remember those thousand year trysts he had with other Sequesters, or Morphis, or Neph, or _you_. Hell he even tried to mate a Watcher when he got lonely enough. He needs something and I just…"

"You wish you could give it to him." Yami muttered. "I know. I… it all comes back to me in big chunks but I know I've tried to give it to him sometimes too. It hurts to see him struggle. He excels in so much."

"I know," he groaned tossing his head back, "I know I shouldn't care too. I mean, it's not our business, we're not his parents this time and there's not exactly much we can do."

"He's on Yusei's planet," the Champion shrugged flippantly, "Yusei's a great Champion, his Faen is good too, Scarlet, maybe Drea could find them and make a coven. That wouldn't argue with his preferences."

"Same problem though." Yugi retorted. "He has a coven with us but it just makes him feel lonelier. Cause I always have you and Drea doesn't have enough. Yusei and Scarlet would just make him jealous."

"It'll be alright." Yami chuckled, "this is so surreal. I've never chatted about someone like they're my kid failing high school…it's weird it feels this natural."

"They're my babies," Yugi caught himself, "_our_babies. Where ever they are. I can't let them go."

"I don't want you too." Yami purred softly. Why did Jenzar find his parental inklings so attractive? He was possessive often enough that Yugi didn't understand how children fit into that equation. Maybe it was just because children were _theirs_that was the real kicker of satisfaction for Jenzar. "We have more family though don't we? I remembered them, sort of, other kids and other immortal allies."

"Oh yeah," the Faen grinned. "Some of them are on Earth. I was hiding with them for a while. Settled with Seto and Ryou recently."

"Hey on that note, question," Yami quirked, "how come we're both boys so often? I remember a lack of boobs frequently for you and almost consistently for me?"

"Cause humans on Earth only have two genders." Yugi shrugged with acute resolution. He'd long since come to terms with this. "Think about it: the Gate Keeper reincarnates us close together on purpose. We're most effective at keeping order the sooner we can get our memories, the quicker we can team up, and the less trouble it causes in the natural world. Everyone else gets a random throw but we get put together on purpose. They move things to get us close together.

So, if we died of dysentery or malnutrition or whatever else every other life before we reached adulthood it would be a waste of resources. On Earth, historically anyway, boys_- sons_- get better treatment. Boys got bigger portions in Egypt than anyone else in the family and when you're poor that makes _all_ the difference. Parents, Lords, fought to keep sons alive because they inherit their honour and protect them when they're old. Girls become someone else's' problem. If _we're_boys we're more likely to make it to adulthood and if we're girls we're going to end up as someone else's' possessions.

If you're a boy and I'm a girl then socially, culturally, I can be _your_possession and we can hunt better without the natural world telling us off for religion or whatever else for being so close. If we're both boys we're more likely to make it to adulthood to hunt longer each life time. If we're boys then we're physically stronger to survive attacks. There's a mess of reasons. Girls don't have rights or they didn't for centuries and frankly homosexuality's only been a big deal the last few centuries."

"Point," Yami blinked, "fair point. I've got to find an excuse to put that in book three…" He glazed a little thoughtfully rearranging the puzzle pieces of plot in his head. "Wait a minute… Faens can't talk to Third Star cause of the Secrecy Pact, right? But she's your god-supervisor-mother and the Gate Keeper's the god of all the different types of Reapers but he looks after the Faens too right? I mean he doesn't _have_to but he does because Third Star can't talk to all of your directly because it would be too risky."

"Yeah?"_ Obviously_, some back part of Yugi added concurrently.

"You think Third Star and the Gate Keeper…?"

"…" Yugi lost his voice for a second before: "_Pft!_" and cackles. "Oh my god! I bet they are! Oh my god!" He buried his face in his hands cackling. "They're totally god smutting! Mummy and Daddy are _actually-_" another giggle. "I guess it makes sense. I mean some of the gods get on and some of them don't but Reapers and Faens? Well who wouldn't!"

"Should've guessed," Yami chuckled, "but con tomorrow! Right?"

"Totally."

* * *

Yugi cast his eyes back over his shoulder with mild trepidation. This was surreal. Okay, it was only fair considering how much surreal-ness he'd put Yami through but still… Screaming fan girls were not something in Atreyu's contract. He didn't have training to deal with this. He felt like a lion at a Zoo Enthusiasts meeting hidden under the refreshments table hoping not to be uncovered while Yami waited comfortably on stage. Why was Yami so anxious around Yugi? So blushing? Yami was reclining up there, like he'd done it a million times before, like some swagging King.

"This is _awesome_." Mokuba beamed beside him in the front row.

"Yeah actually," Yugi laughed breathlessly, casting a shy smile to Yami as the author caught his eye to grin spectacularly with self pride. The man was so content in himself today now that Yugi was here approving of him. The Faen wasn't quite sure what to do aside from get flustered which his warrior pride didn't accept readily. "You been having fun with Joey?"

"Yeah he's okay," the teen shrugged, Joey had been planning to attend the convention for weeks for the Duel Monsters tournament and Mokuba for the guests. Kaiba had, in all his wisdom, shuffled them off together to 'bond'.

It was exceptionally mature for Seto Yugi remarked to himself. Seto was so fiercely protective of Mokuba that it was peculiar for him to shuffle along the teen to try and kinder a bond with someone else. He must really like Yami's American friend. Yugi did too actually, Joey Wheeler was no Kisara but that was three thousand years ago, the blonde was insightful and just what was needed for Seto. Yugi thought he was really quite wondrous, totally approved of him, and hoped the blonde would hug Seto like a leech for a few life times. They worked. Mokuba would warm up to the affairs of his brother for that matter and Yugi would make sure of it.

"Bet he doesn't fret over you as much as Seto does?" Yugi teased idly as the crowd, making him increasingly uncomfortable, stumbled in costumed and excitable. His magic was raking the room for Seers but Yami's Champion core was blotting out everything else with a wave of crimson.

"Nah," Mokuba grinned mildly, "Joey's really chill. He lets me go do my own thing if I want."

"He plays Duel Monsters too," the Faen approved, "is he any good?"

"Yeah," the child perked, "he's got major balls. His entire deck's built round chance cards. All the gambler's set."

"No way?" He whistled low. Yugi had done some duelling in his time, like Yami unsurprisingly, and he had quite an appreciation for Pegasus but that was a story for another time. Chance cards eh? Yugi considered it. Chance… luck…? A light bulb flashed and Faen instincts satisfied Yugi smiled.

"Heh?" Mokuba prompted him to share.

"Nothing," he dismissed playfully, "don't worry."

_Luck_. Joey Wheeler, the sassy blonde American, _had_to be a Luck Lottery, a Loreat, and Yugi could not have liked the idea better. Of course he was. Why hadn't the Faen guessed it earlier? Joey was such a prime example of the soul type it was almost too obvious. They were good souls but not warriors or back stage staff in the Supernatural universe. They had no capabilities for remembering their past lives, no capabilities to hunt, but they were exceptionally useful in keeping the universe flowing in interesting ways.

Seers of all colours made chaos, creatures like Reapers kept order, Watchers took notes, Christians and other types in their multitudes wrestled with ideas of morality, Timers made sure there were consequences so things could be achieved… it was a system. Like an engine or an ecosystem. The world was so precious because the future was never certain and in fact didn't exist until it was the present. You couldn't go back in time or forward thanks to Chronos but, despite what Watchers would like, the universe wasn't predictable. Seers ruined things and Luck Lotteries kept it interesting. Souls like Joey Wheeler created chance, serendipity, good luck and bad and their cores scattered it around in bursts for people to run into under the direction of Supervisor Loki.

It made Joey the perfect distraction, disruption, to Seto's orderly life and for Yami it was a great asset for a Champion like Yami to have. Yugi could lap at the humour of it from his third point perspective. Faens were relatively immune to luck good or bad.

"Alright!" Yami laughed from the stage over the mic. "We all set? Good to start?"

Yugi's belly tightened with ridiculous anxiety. So surreal, so fly on the wall, he felt like he was at his own funeral. The patrons weren't guaranteed to be friendly either. How well would he take being called clichéd? He'd made a promise not to use magic on anyone unsuspecting but he was more worried about how these people would affect him. He'd tried so very hard to stay out of the fandom during his vendetta. It had _hurt_when he was sixteen to, essentially, be gossiped about. Now it was fascinating but frightful.

"Okay," the author exhaled, "hey everybody!"

They screamed. It was startling. Lord, Yami just giggled and Mokuba looked like he might bounce right out of his seat.

"Well that was one hell of a hello. I'm going to assume we've all had our _power thirst_today," he chuckled. "Questions? Yep!" He gestured.

It was a procession of fairly even handed questions, typical things, and Yugi shoulders lazed unevenly. They were teens, tweens, they weren't about to besiege him but the Faen would've felt less vulnerable in a cage.

"What do you like to read?"

"Romance," Yami groaned, "I'm such a girl."

They squealed. Yugi smiled.

"What styles do you like?" Oh now they were getting educated.

"I'm not real good with Post Modernism or Modernism, to be honest, but I love me some Realism on occasion. There's something really fun about writers like Dickens who are _so_ sarcastic and then they sort of wander off tangents right out of the real world into gothic castles. Halfway through _Great Expectations_ Dickens seems to just, ya know, forget he's writing a Realist novel and goes: _ya know what this needs? Axe murders, fire and psychotic old ladies_. Brilliant." He shared in their excitement. "I like Shakespeare, fantasy, sci-fi… All the nonsense I shove in a book like it's a big cliché blender."

"Who's your favourite author?" The brunette in the back chirped.

"Oh," Yami wavered, "that's a dangerous question. Who am I going to offend today eh? Um, let's see… not Stephanie Meyer, sorry," mottled but generous applause answered Yami's cackle, "but…I like…" he teetered. "Look, to be honest, my favourite is probably Anne Rice. Gay vampires, what's not to love?"

Now _that _got a response.

"In _Lapse_," oh they had a quoter, "the Faens aren't supposed to be in contact right?"

"Right," Yami laughed trepidatiously, one hand grasping his opposing elbow as he cradled the mic. The audience, like Yugi, seemed to find something amusing in the caution of his gait as she started her question. Yami milked it, murmuring into the mic, "why do I have the worst feeling I'm about to called up on a plot hole?"

Hysterics.

Fuck Yami was good at this. Yugi threw his arm over the back of the propped chair and was fascinated to watch.

"Then how come Denn and Trey and Vegas are allowed to fight together to protect the Hive from the Seers right at the end?"

"Good point," Yami conceded. "Look the Faens have the Secrecy Pact like you know. Obviously. They're valuable resources and the less they know about each other the better. Cause the whole policy is there so that if something happens to one of them they don't know enough to tell some big bad where the others are but…" he laughed, "but I'm _stalling_. Um, look, best person to ask is my plot hole fixer."

Oh no, he wouldn't, Yugi stiffened as Yami looked for help.

"Yug?" He appealed hopefully.

"Don't bring me into this! They're you're plot holes!" He baulked half cackling as suddenly there was a runner pressing a microphone at him and an audience laughing.

"Please?" Yami pried glancing back to the audience. "Hey this is Yugi by the way everybody. He puts up with me regularly, makes sure I don't starve, kisses me when I fuck up… He's great."

Oh now the whole room was simmering, little bastard, Yugi cursed laughing.

"Well," Yugi sighed caving, Drea would kill him for sharing this. "Look in extreme circumstances, for the good of everyone, the Gate Keeper has authority to temporarily revoke the Pact. If he has to do that then he's got to minimise the security info lost in some way. He'd call on all three Faens from Earth for example rather than from several planets because then you've only got one planet compromised. It's military strategy and in a big fight there's not much time for a goss sesh, you know?" _I barely saw Denn and Vegas in all the chaos_, Yugi had to catch his own tongue on, but the room seemed settled.

"See?" Yami grinned to pass over it. "This is why I cart him around with me. He bullshits great answers. Sorry Yug, baby," he appeased to the ruffled little Faen as Yugi shook his head at him and the audience fluffed. He turned back to the audience and warned jokingly in a low voice: "I'm in trouble now. I won't get dinner tonight."

"Will Trey and Atemu get together?" The next girl piped excitedly and she had quite a few agreeable followers.

"_Maybe,_" Yami teased, winking down to Yugi who had to resist the urge to bury his face in his hands now he had a great deal more wandering eyes aware of him.

"That's not an answer!" Someone cheeky shouted.

"I know," Yami grinned, "I'm horrid."

* * *

Yugi talked Mokuba out of waiting in line for a signature easily. The littlest Kaiba was smashingly pleased with himself now that Yugi had secured him access to Yami Sennen whenever he damn well pleased. So he scampered off to watch Joey duel while Yugi traced the rows of booths riffling through the dvd stacks at the _Madman_ stall. He liked conventions. He was a nerd at heart. A little understated today in his dress though: that white embroidered top he loved which flowed, his heeled badass thigh high boots, the Lance pendent, his tear drop earring… his casual things. Given more time Yugi would've cosplayed so maybe next time. It was kind of scary there _would_be a next time.

He still felt on edge, a little restless, while Yami was hogged at the signing booth pouring over pages and giving himself the closest thing to wankers' cramp humanly possible in public. This was all sinking in. Yami had the fun of realizing his fantasy was real but Yugi had come to terms with that yonks ago. Now, conversely, he had the mellow realization that came in waves: his first boyfriend, Jenzar home, dating a famous author, dating an older man… Yugi was going to be stained pink before he could help himself and he'd gotten so good at not blushing around Yami. At sixteen he certainly hadn't expected to end up on the arm of the man who'd written those books. He felt like a school girl all butterfly flutters.

A little lap of memory came to him at _butterflies_. He had them on every accessory really. Yugi didn't even think about it anymore and it made him smile to recall their origins in his favouritism: his wings. The wings Jenzar had made for him in Sanctuary for a dance…

His phone buzzed, rattling, in his pocket and fishing it out he was surprised to find Yami's number.

"Hello?" He murmured into the handset, one set of nimble fingers still rifling through the dvd stack. "You got a break already?"

"Nah not yet Baby," he laughed enthusiastically, "can you come back to the booth for me though Gorgeous?"

"Yeah?" Yugi supposed. "Why?"

"Surprise," Yami teased, and the Faen resisted the urge to groan.

"No throwing me at fan girls." He ordered.

"Deal." The Champion promised.

When Yugi made it back round the edge of the indoor dome to Yami's end of the signing panel there were a couple of stragglers, ununiformed, chattering behind the desk who Yugi didn't recognise. His heart leapt uncertainly and gesturing Yami beckoned him up apologising to the front of the line begging for a moment. This whole building reminded Yugi uncomfortably of the Nest, of Yami being in danger, and when the author took him by the elbow behind the desk he was still protective as hell.

"Yugi," Yami beamed conspiratorially to the straight faced Faen, "this is Leon and Jaden."

Leon waved rather uncertainty, bashful, and bouncing Jaden looked about ready to escape his skin when Yugi's eyes settled on him. Yugi saw more with his senses than with his eyes these days: he saw the pulse of Leon and Jaden's cores, found them unthreatening on the top level at the web of strings connecting them to the world and the souls, auras, themselves were of familiar texture.

"Hey," he smiled.

"You three go have fun," Yami prefaced, "I'll be done in another hour or three and then I'll take us all out to dinner."

"Seriously?" Jaden beamed.

"Hell yeah," Yami promised. "Clear it with your parents. I haven't seen you in ages."

"Okay?" Yugi laughed bemused tilting his head to the others as Yami shepherded them back out arm hooking round Yugi's waist unexpectedly a second later to press a firm, sloppy, kiss to his cheek bone.

"Don't worry," he whispered, pecking his temple. "Have fun."

"Kay," Yugi pursed his lips, turning into the Champion as the other pulled away. His heart tugged a little as they slipped apart but Yami smiled and composed, ruthless, as he was Yugi recovered quickly enough.

"Hey," Jaden muttered shyly at his elbow, almost radiantly reverent of Yugi and bashful Leon as he stood the youngest between them. "You're Trey right?"

He whispered, Leon tightened with knowing readiness and Yugi unfurled a realization of what exactly Yami had done. He found his smile again, core rebounding with sparkling light as he met Jaden's hopeful eyes.

"Depends who you are?" He teased.

"Jaden _Morphis Horus _Yuki." He winked but then lost his nerve to shrug.

"Yes!" Leon swore happily under his breath as Yugi's pulse raced with newfound exhilaration. Then it leapt again with a new twinkle from Leon: "I'm _finally _older than you for once!"

"_Neph?"_Jaden snorted gaping. "No fair!"

"Nephele," Yugi cooed, hooking his arms round the pair of them. "You dated Yami?"

"Yeah," the other blushed, "mad?"

"No," he beamed, squeezing the pair of them in close. Leon was soft, a little bit older than Yugi and ever so slightly taller but still so gently reverent of his authority, while Jaden clutched him with such apparently acceptant joyousness, naivety, Yugi felt all his parental instinct washing back.

It would be so much easier, some little Atreyu part of him breathed with a sigh of relief, to let go of seeing Yami as the baby of the coven if they had two new babies to tease.

"How old are you guys?" Yugi supposed.

"Twenty-two," Leon perked, "and what are you Jaden twelve?"

"Oi!" He grunted, creeping to reach Yugi's height and certainly even with Mokuba, "I'm seventeen!"

"Ooh," Leon teased turning to Yugi, "seventeen? Got a badass here."

The brunette shoved his tongue out under Yugi's chin and laughing, twittering, it was as if the three of them had known each other in these mortal bodies for decades. In a way that surpassed differences of age, more like the filialness of cousins really, and Yugi's old worn authority flourished unchallenged with them. Leon and Jaden were so keen to flank him it was instantaneous in its motion and they ambled off from Yami rather fearlessly Leon's arms linked with Yugi's, Yugi's round Jaden's shoulders while the teen grasped his waist like a gaping fan boy.

"This is so fucking cool." Jaden cooed.

"You can say that again," Yugi laughed breathlessly, "what should we do? A friend of mine's over at the tables playing Duel Monsters if you want to watch?"

"Can ya compete?" The teen supposed.

"Yeah I think we can grab a table," he laughed. "You play Jay?"

"Hells yeah," he grinned, "you?"

"Yeah I can cut a deck," Yugi grinned, "you Leon?"

"I…" he laughed a little, "I have a fairy-tale themed deck."

"_Sweet_." Jaden and Yugi chorused instinctively.

"Well then I think we better go beat the crap out of each other in a little competitive duelling." Yugi smirked.

"The world is perfect," Jaden spasmed unbridled, "I am so glad you guys are real! I don't know anyone who remembers who I can talk to!"

"Give me your phones," Yugi ordered, "can't have that. Japan's riddled with Seers."

Jaden was bouncing again and more restrained, nonetheless, Leon appeared rather breathless and beaming at the prospect. They knew each other eternally. Nothing would change Atreyu's love for them that was timeless, selfless and senseless but in the mortal coil as Yugi, Leon and Jaden rather than Atreyu, Nephele and Morphis it was a scary prospect to consider their current incarnations might just not gel. Yugi usually had a good sense for when these things wouldn't work. This was not one of those times. These kids were going to be stuck with him now. He could taste it and it made him exuberant. He had his family back, his coven expanded, he could die with joy.

"Hey Yugi," Jaden quirked, newly shy again when he spoke. "Can I ask you something?"

"_Anything_."

"How come the Lance of Lazarus' emergency form looks like Slifer the Sky Dragon?"

"Pegasus Crawford is…" he laughed, "he's an _old _friend. He knows more about what's going on on this planet than_ I_do. A lot of Duel Monsters cards are based off mythology, which is always based off us, or fairy-tales, which again is our line of work, and then there are a few that are pretty specific references to some of us. Slifer, Obelisk and Ra are what Jenz, Sev and Amar's emergency modes look like for the Lances' of Lazarus, Orpheus and Dante."

"Pegasus knows?" Leon whispered awed.

"He knows everything." Yugi snorted. "He knew every Faen and Reaper on Earth and their Lance modes before Yami ever put pen to paper."

* * *

_Notes:  
_1 Why yes we shifted to a majority POV from Yugi this chapter! We're going to be sticking with him mostly but we will jump back and forth from now on between characters.

2 Be honest, how many people forgot Yami had a cat? I did!

3 Why yes I did just throw in a reason why this get to be a Yaoi fic~ to me if you're reincarnated for a purpose on Earth it makes more sense historically to make you a boy.

4 So Yugi's figured out what Joey is even if Joey doesn't know and isn't supposed to know. For that reason we can safely assume being a Luck Lottery Joey doesn't have an astral form.

5 So each of the Earth Champions has a lance. Here are the specifics:  
Jenzar/Yami- Lance of Lazarus- Emergency mode Slifer  
Amar/Rishid- Lance of Dante- Emergency mode Ra  
Sevitiucs/Raphael- Lance of Orpheus- Emergency mode Obelisk  
NB- Lazarus, Dante and Orpheus are all mythological figures who rose from the dead!

_Questions:  
_Okay so, for the new fic "_Gambit_", there's a couple of things I'd love to hear your thoughts on. It's an AU.

1. Side pairing- currently the fic is Yami/Yugi with side pairings. What do you prefer as a side pairing Timaeus/Yugi or Atem/Yugi? (in this Yami and Atem would be separate people with no shared history)

2. I write everything with a soundtrack. How interested would you be to know at the end of a chapter what songs I use for the battle scenes and the pairings or characters? (I would include songs that would give you hints about characters motivations/histories/etc as well _but_ to get good quality versions of some of the tracks you might have to download the actual songs)

Anyway guys love you load, dying to show you some new stuff and hope you have a great week!


	21. Flipping the Board

Hey guys! Hopefully you'll enjoy this week. _Gambit_ chapter one is up tonight. Please go check it out.

* * *

Chapter 1: Act 4: _Flipping the Board _

Drea wanted to tremble, every astral muscle tried to spasm, and curling his fingers he pursed his lips, bit his tongue and curled. On his stomach, on his forearms, forehead scraping sheets the softness of the nest offered no comfort. Sequesters dealt pain and as they said in Troy:_ don't ever deal any more than you can take_. Drea was the best, Drea destroyed, Drea could take what would have a Champion writhing on the tiles or the splatter of the battle field. He lived in the trenches of the supernatural and natural turf war to keep the cap on the great secret of how the universe was run.

"_Ah_…" he hissed low, groaning through his teeth, panting out. "You're sure-" he paused choking "-they can't find us here?"

"No God can penetrate into a black spot. Ammit can't even see his child anymore. You're off the radar." Zorc murmured somewhere not so far off as Drea contained himself trying to pace his words to hold in the screaming instinct.

"Good," he spat, "I could…" another pant, "I could be given a sentence in Limbo for a violation like this."

"Your trial will be over soon." Zorc assured. "You have impressive resolve."

"I don't-" he grunted round the knot in his chest, "-need your pity. _Ah!_"

Everything radiated with the throb of the call. His edges of his soul were caught. He had twined them up in a bundle for this inane, insane, plan. He had trapped himself, core, soul and all, in his astral form and refused the fishing line summons trying to tug him back to his body. To dissect his soul like this from his current physical body was agonising and until that body died, soulless but capable of breathing if nothing else, he could not reincarnate. He was past the point of no return. He was dooming himself for this plan of Zorc's with very little real information. He shouldn't trust this thing, this World Eater, but for a chance…

Drea would do _anything_.

Zorc probably didn't look as human as his current visage would suggest. Drea could feel it. He was a supernatural detective, a hit man, he knew monsters in the night and he knew this thing was in no way, shape or form anything like a human being. He doubted it had a heart. He imagined this was what it felt like to be with Lilith the Mother of the Seers. So it was with millenniums of inbuilt, trained and weathered instinct that he took the fleeting touch of the thing's fingers through his hair. Repulsion turned his head.

"Don't touch me." He spat. It was the prying, curious, crawl of a spider over something new. It was animal, slime, less-than-ness sneaking over him without real human compassion he could sense. "_Ghn_…"

"Very impressive," it resolved with a lilt, taloned fingers hovering over him. "I am already fond of you."

"If this," Drea warned viciously, "if this is all some game I will destroy you. You better come through."

"I will. You underestimate me."

"You still haven't told me," he groaned pathetically and chastised himself, "what you want in return for all this."

"A moment of Atreyu's time, something fleeting, something new and nothing irreparable."

"_Bullshit._" He spat in agony. "No one does this for nothing."

"What's meagre to you is grand to me." Zorc supposed. "If you do not trust why comply with this feeling?"

"Loneliness." Drea muttered through clenched teeth. "Heh," he laughed hoarsely, "what have I got to lose?"

"Loneliness?" Zorc seemed to play with the word as if it were new and gathering it up to some conclusion that clawed maw of a hand, the joke of the appendage in some human shaped mockery, settled between Drea's clothed shoulder blades as they shook and ran down his mildly quaking spine.

His hair splayed round his face, his eyes burned, his cheeks aflame from fever and Drea had no strength to argue with his soul and this ridiculous monster at once. He let it pat him, try to comfort perhaps or simply satisfy curiosity, and those claws came cold through his hair like a fresh breeze. He collapsed from his elbows, submerged face down in the softness of the nest in this black spot of the universe the World Eater had somehow made where gods did not apply, and shook through this torment.

It patted him, like a cat petting its owner, and bizarrely disgusting as it was to Drea's disposition he allowed it for the moment.

* * *

"So," Leon murmured beside Yugi as Jaden argued with his parents over the cell, "are you happy it's Yami?"

"_Ecstatic,_" Yugi cooed. "He's…He _is _Jenzar Fraveous. He belongs in Camelot."

"I thought so too," he laughed, arm still hooked in Yugi's. "Gave us a fright didn't he?"

"That's Jenzar for you," they sighed with mutual understanding, "never a dull moment."

"Well hopefully we can steal a few for a little while." Leon pleaded.

"I'm not even going to pretend," Yugi snorted as Jaden shoved his phone back into his pocket, eyes rolling back, groaning. "How'd it go?"

"You'd think you were a bunch of Vikings and I was asking them to go rape, pillage and plunder down town Tokyo." He huffed. "What do I look like? Squishy and molestable?"

"Something like that." Leon teased.

"Eh!"

"They're your parents. They have to worry." Yugi quirked. "If they didn't worry about you buggering off with older men I'd be ripping you out of there. I wouldn't let you do it. Yami'd be picking you up."

"I'm seventeen." Jaden postured flippantly. "I can handle myself."

"Nope, sorry," he snorted, "I don't care if you're thirty or thirty-thousand."

"To Trey we're all still five." Leon chuckled.

"It's kinda cool if it's Trey though," Jaden teetered playfully.

"Heh," Yugi laughed, "Yami better hurry the fuck up. I'm freezing!"

The con was closing up for the day. Hordes of teenagers had already dispersed in the falling sunlight and waiting outside the double glass doors onto the back car park the three of them had huddled like penguins. Mokuba and Joey had already left an hour ago. Joey was a little sore from the duelling, ever so slightly, when Yugi pulled out all the stops to thrash the remaining table hoppers the blonde American, Leon and Jaden included. They'd had fun but Joey had been, from what Yugi understood, on something of a confidence roll in the professional duelling circuit since Kaiba had taken a vacation from it. It was healthy to get a little taken aback every now and again Yugi supposed but he had assured the blonde he _was_exceptionally talented.

Really Yugi probably had an unfair advantage over Joey. Luck magic didn't work on Faens and without that the entire strategy of Joey's deck with the chance fail safe's he had to fall back on fell apart. Yugi made the entire duel strategy based. Joey was a competent duellist but chance sometimes took things out of your hands and forced both players into corners to adapt. Not with Yugi. He liked the blonde though, very much, he was glad the Luck Lottery would be sticking around even if Joey didn't realize he was part of a coven.

Leon and Jaden, his Nephele and Morphis, were actually rather dashing duellists themselves. Yugi understood the attraction to the game for them like he did for himself. It drew a lot of the soul types who maintained order and retained memories. Pegasus knew that he was sure. Jaden had a ways to go but there was flair and Leon, Lord, Leon knew strategy and Leon had a _very_ well built deck.

Rubbing his upper arms furtively Yugi and his cohorts gave a relieved little cheer where Yami emerged from the double doors and threw his hands over his head.

"Sorry guys," Yami greeted, fingers skirted ruffling over Jaden's head and crept snug round Yugi who leant back into the warmth. "I'm starving! Who wants Italian?"

"Indian," Yugi and Leon chorused.

"Indian then," he laughed, tilting to Jaden. "You have fun without me?"

"Everything is epic and nothing hurts."

* * *

Jaden ate like no one had ever fed him and Yugi hardly noticed that Leon was even a little bit older than him or Jaden. Leon and Jaden argued like they'd been raised together, really they had many times, which only made it harder to think they hadn't been weened together for four hundred years. Yami glowed beside him at the table as Yugi scrapped rice out of the little kitschy tin urn the waiter had left. This was the celebration he'd wanted. He couldn't have all his family present because of the Secrecy Pact and his Natural World coven might not be in attendance tonight but for a little moment he just wanted what amounted to Jenzar and the kids. This was Yugi's version of normalcy. It made the tension in his neck ease.

This called for a sacrifice, it occurred to Yugi, like some medieval knight who added a new flourish to their coat of arms after a particularly legendary battle the Champions liked to mark things. As a Faen Yugi, Atreyu, was more disposed to make an offering of some sort back to the universe in thanks as some kind of way to assure this happiness a little longer. Call it karma buffering.

The drinks were winding down and he'd have to get the others home soon, so shuffling in his seat Yugi fished in Yami's pocket unceremoniously.

The Champion jumped.

"Warn me why don't ya?" Yami laughed as he startled the pair of them with his reaction.

"Sorry," Yugi snorted, fishing out the other's smartphone. "In my head a little."

"What do you need?" The author offered as Yugi brought up goggle on his handset, one firm hand resting on the back of Yugi's chair, and the Faen could sense a prickle of Champion instinct riling to life. The traditional head of family wanted to provide.

"Just wondering if there's a piercing parlour nearby," Yugi answered casually and while Leon seemed perplexed Yami had, to his credit, apparently acclimatized himself to this sort of thing because he didn't appear anywhere near as surprised as he should've been.

"Okay?" He supposed. He really would let Yugi get away with anything wouldn't he?

"Oh my god!" Jaden clapped. "Can I get a tatt?"

"_No._" All three adults chorused unanimously.

"Oh come on," he whined, "it'll be fun! Just a little one?"

"You are like the universal voice of bad ideas…" Leon snorted. "Like Wheatly."

"Makes Yugi GLaDos," Jaden quirked.

"Yami's Chell." He agreed.

"What's that make you?" Jaden supposed to Leon.

"Pfft, newbs," Yugi laughed gesturing round the table with a sharply pointed finger as he assigned roles. "I'm Caroline, Yami's Cave Johnson, Leon's Chell, Jaden's Wheatly and Drea's GLaDos. Back me up here Jenz?"

"Is now a bad time to say I have no idea what you're talking about?" Yami hesitated to receive several pained groans in reply. "_What?_I never got round to playing it!"

"Charlatan," Leon murmured dramatically, "blasphemer."

"Shun the non believer?" Jaden suggested with a giggle.

"_Cha-arlie_," Yugi mumbled under his breath as he bit his own lip against the giggles.

Jaden and Leon collapsed and before another breath could be ushered all three of them were cackling while Yami, poor thing, looked even more flustered and bamboozled than a moment ago. What had Virginia Woolf written once about birds speaking in Greek? Yugi tried to recall it before remembering his total aversion to all things Woolf.

"I feel _old_ all of a sudden," Yami chuckled.

"I feel ancient," Yugi grinned.

"So, question," Yami murmured, "why are we going to a piercing parlour? Do I have to swear a vow of fealty or something?"

"Nah, I just want to…" he fumbled, "I don't know, _sanctify_ this."

"Does that mean I'm about to get prodded with sharp objects?"

"As much as I'm sure you'd love it, no," Yugi grinned. "It's my turn."

"Oh?"

"Who wants to come with?" Yugi diverted.

"Me!" Jaden called automatically thrusting his hand in the air like he was in a fictitious classroom startling the awkwardly glancing diners round them.

"Well too bad," Yami shot playfully, "it's like eight thirty. You need to go home. Don't you have school tomorrow or something?"

"Screw school. The only education I need is in ass kicking," Jaden shrugged dismissively assembling all his swagger into one concentrated blast, "and I'm top of that class."

"Ah-huh, sure hero," Leon chuckled. "I can drive you home if you like? Nicer than catching the bus."

"Yeah?" He wavered at the prospect. Deep down Yugi was quite sure Jaden understood no amount of posturing would convince he and Yami to let the teenager stay out with them too late. When Jaden turned eighteen, Yugi grinned, heaven help him. It would be a coven birthday to remember. He could already see it. He had to plan this things after all.

"You got our numbers and email?" Yami checked and beaming Jaden nodded himself silly like his brains might rattle out his ears, like a puppy really. Yugi couldn't fault his enthusiasm. It had been a massive confidence boost for him to discover about the Faens and to have friends in on the secret filled a gaping hole so many of them dealt with.

"Okay, then I'll go get the bill," Yami decided over Leon and Yugi's protests. "No, don't give me that, if I want to spoil the three of you then I will do the spoiling thank you."

* * *

"I thought you were going to punch the piercer," Yugi cackled as he flipped the locks of the front door, wiggling his nose.

"It looked like it hurt," the Champion returned protectively, twitching back as he threw off his jacket. "Doesn't it?"

"Little bit," the Faen admitted, "I kinda like the sting though."

Yami fumbled quietly at the massive side table near the front door and Yugi didn't regret causing the minor testosterone seizure for a second. Tonight had been normalcy reformed in the twentieth century. He felt more like Atreyu than he had in three centuries and with that under his belt he rather liked the crinkling ache of the nose stud. He liked having Leon and Jaden's numbers in his phone again. He liked having his coven expanded. He liked having Yami. He liked the protective flicker of queasiness he'd heard Yami moan with when, hissing, Yugi had felt the piercer dig the needle into the metal plaque just inside his right nostril. It was just like Jenzar, Yami now, to want to hit someone, tense his arms from shoulder to curled firsts, when it was Yugi's choice to endure the pain.

"You know that really turns the Pharaoh on," Yami mumbled uneasily. "I can _hear_ him purring in my head. He's like a really perverted tumour."

"You get used to it." Yugi winked.

Heba loved piercings too and there was an old tribal warrior somewhere in Yugi's head, some _Rengul_, who quite loved war paint and ceremonial tattoos. Their enjoyment seeped into him and made new experiences seem mellower. Every new moment was lurching into a fresh pool before realizing it wasn't so new at all. Every time Yugi thought he was doing something he had never done before his immortal memory supplied comparisons: rainforest streams he'd bathed in looking up to the sunlight through the canopy, a thousand other stranger forms of body modification he'd endured, and even a myriad of sexual positions he'd tried. It made the universe less frightening. Yugi could see things differently, sense things, and it was much less frightening to learn math when he remembered learning Latin.

"You're not scared of him?" Yami asked and blinking Yugi leant back into the door as the Champion approached languidly to fold his body over Yugi's smaller form. He was older than Yugi, by no short stretch, and it bamboozled Yugi to think Yami had found him attractive despite the age gap.

"Of course not," he murmured, distracted by the ruddy, downy, warmth of the taller body as his fingers fumbled over Yami's clavicle. "He's part of you. He'd never hurt us. He might kill _someone_ _else _but he'd never hurt us."

Yami's hands glided up his side, the Champion leant into him, and slowly the man softened to nuzzle the side of Yugi's face. The Faen tensed in curiosity, was Yami switching with another incarnation? No, he still felt like himself but he held Yugi a little closer purposefully.

"Mine right?" He whispered.

"All yours," Yugi cooed weakly, fingers tangling round his neck as he tried to pull himself up more into Yami.

"I love you _so much_," Yami hushed into his cheek, fingers squeezing at the small of the Faen's back snug between his tee-shirt and the door. Yugi floundered a little at the outpouring, unsure, caught between anxiety and gooey submissive joy.

"I love you," he promised sincerely, he did. He wondered if Yami had any idea how happy he was that he didn't have to share. How glorious it was that Atemu was his, would stay with him, and would have a future with him. "What's wrong?"

"It's just _so_ surreal." The author laughed breathlessly against his cheek. "It's like… I don't know. Suddenly I don't have to be worried any more. This is my family and you're mine but it's so weird. It's like… like I read all seven Harry Potter books and then the next day I _am_Harry Potter. My minds' kinda shell shocked with, like, a dangerous happy overload. It's not bad I just…"

"What?" Yugi insisted guiltily.

Was this his fault? Probably, he rued. He rushed ahead and no doubt Yami was having a late onset of whiplash now the initial surge was done. They had so little time to detox in this life. It was stupid but part of Yugi was nervous that Yami was unhappy being Jenzar, that he'd rather be independent of them after all and centuries wondering if Jenzar had left him played at his concerns now.

"I'm sorry," Yami answered oddly but with immense sincerity.

"_Sorry?_" The Faen baulked. "What the hell for? You haven't done anything!" Except from being exceptionally awesome of course.

"I just feel like I should've been here," he mourned resting his weight into Yugi. "The part of me that is Atemu, yeah that was okay because I was too weak to do anything, but the part of me that was in the Seer nest… I feel stupid for getting caught. I promised to protect you and I got tricked like a _dumbass_. I feel like I should've known better."

"Hey, shh," Yugi snapped grasping at Yami's cheeks. "That's never happened before. I don't even know how Cassidia focused long enough to think of something smart like that and stick with it. It was like a fish walking. You're not superman, how were you supposed to know? They played on how much you loved me. You weren't an idiot. Any other Champion would've run guns blazing into that."

"I feel like I should've." He chastised weakly nose to nose. "I can't make up not being here to your past lives, to you, and… I _hate_knowing you were alone and scared. I hate that you had to protect me."

"Come on, give me a little credit, I can take it." The Faen defended lightly. "Besides if it was going to happen to anyone better it was us. We kick ass. I don't know a Champion _other_ than you, Amar or Yusei who _ripped in two_ could've found their way back to their Faens. You found me. You didn't even know who you were. You never gave up. You did _amazing_. If we were still in the 1400s minstrels would be writing little ballads about you right now. That's legendary types of awesome."

"I'm just frustrated," Yami sighed, burying his face into Yugi's plush cheek. "You're precious. If anything had happened to you while I was gone…"

"_I'm fine_." Yugi stressed arms hooked tight round his shoulders.

"Yeah but you always say that," the Champion chuckled, "you had a sword in one side and out the other and you told me you were peachy once."

"It was a nice day." Yugi grinned. "I'm not going to let a little murder spoil a lovely afternoon."

Yami laughed, weak, arms flexing round him securely. Yugi worried the Champion's spine with his palms trying to reassure some tension out of the limbs that were coiled round him so intensely. It was a little wave of sadness but Yami seemed to be lifting his head above it. Typically it was more the fear that something might've happened than anything that had actually happened which was cloying, tearing, at Yami-Jenzar.

"I want to take you to bed." The author whispered softly. "I don't want to let you go."

"Never have to." He promised heels twisting in the carpet revelling in the fact that behind Yami there was no salt line and no longer any need for one.

They'd coil in the bed again. Yugi would feel the bizarre warmth of another body limply lulled behind him for another night and be soothed down to his core into a deeper sleep than he'd known in years. Hopefu-

The air round the house rang suddenly.

Yugi tensed, cutting the thought, and round him Yami stiffened like a roused dragon raising its muzzle to an intruder. The Faen expanded his senses, focused, and could almost hear Yami's brain ticking over with the same inquisitive thrumming. His back felt cold, light seemed to flicker in the dark hallway, and twisting in Yami's arms Yugi pressed his eye to the stain glass panel.

How they did this so naturally, without ever needing explanation, was the very tangible embodiment of real magic. Yugi's secret world solidified and he was at once very chilled in his jeans as if a frigid draft was slipping under the bottom of the front door. He scanned outside, blurred by the colours and texture of the glass, in the darkness under the street light to make out the hazed but solid figure looming in view. He could make out little else but the blackened outline but his core could sense the foulness in a way he couldn't word and it instantly made him uneasy.

"There's someone outside," he whispered, "on the sidewalk down the stairs."

"It's a Seer." Yami told him certainly. "I can feel it."

"One of the stragglers left on Earth during the fight with Cassidia." Yugi nodded afraid to drag his eye away because it seemed improper or dangerous. "They don't have a new Queen for Earth now, not yet anyway-"

"Working off its own instincts then," the Champion murmured, grasping Yugi's elbow firmly. "Back up a little Baby. Go stand by the stairs."

"But-" protective instinct made Yugi flair.

"I'll make it go away," Yami promised quietly confident, and Yugi was conflicted to agree with him or to overrule him.

He couldn't really do that anymore however he realized. Yami was Jenzar. Yami knew more about this than even Atreyu did. It was his job to deal with this kind of conflict, the knight and protector of the home. Yugi would have no luck arguing but after four centuries alone and months mothering, coddling, Yami's weakness he fought himself to peel back from the door.

Watching intently Yugi lingered at the banister of the stair well, unnerved, and straight as a ruler in his posture Yami waited unwaveringly with his hand on the handle of the door. Atreyu, Yugi, had forgotten this. This feeling of clustering himself up in the blankets, hiding the little ones against his breast, while Jenzar snuck out of their shack or palace and chased the demons of the universe back to whatever hells they had crawled out of.

The memory was razor sharp now, acute, and Yugi at once recalled the life times when he didn't yet remember he was Atreyu where Yami's past lives had. Once, it must've been in Russia, Yugi hadn't remembered it all yet and Jenzar knowing before him what was going on had taken charge. They'd been in an empty house, Yugi had been a small boy that time, and Yami's past self (_Rosco wasn't it?_) had wrapped him snug in a blanket as suddenly the doors of the abandoned hovel had begun knocking slowly. Yami, Jenzar, had told him not to leave the room for anything till the elder returned and Yugi's past self distinctly remember the screeches, the whooshing slaps, like a great man sized bat had been let in the front door as he hid in the bedroom. He remembered hearing the struggle, remembered Yami's past self coming back, remembered being scared and held and told everything was fine. How many times had Jenzar told him that nothing bad would ever happen?

In the present Yami unlocked the front door slowly and as quiet as they were Yugi could hear the shuffle of footsteps up the front steps.

There was no way a Seer could pass the threshold of this house with all the fortified Mountain King-esque magic Yami and Yugi had layered into the walls. The red net of Yami's magic wouldn't allow it and the pendant which was the Lance of Lazarus hummed warm against Yugi's clavicle in the mounting chill. Still the Seer might follow them, might watch them, like a rat waiting for a crack to exploit and just the presence hanging over them was exhaustingly unnerving. It was the same feeling of knowing a lion or a wolf was just outside and hungry.

Yami was transformed in that dim light from the frazzled, racoon eyed, author Yugi had put himself in the way of months ago. He was ready, steeled, waiting for just the right second to pounce like a finely muscled predator on the threshold with its hind legs tensed. Yami had undergone so much change under Yugi's watchful eye. He'd seen it happen before him like dye colouring paint to slowly deepen with swirls. He'd seen Ryou become miserable but resolved to his bittersweet love, seen Kaiba become an ass then a terrified maraca then an even bigger ass, and seen himself transfigure from a mouse to a star with a nuclear powerhouse. Yet to see Yami from the stumbling, naturally charming but ruffled sweet guy to the regal hero eager to run to his defence was magnificent and fresh. It was to Jenzar's credit that every single piece of him would keep fighting even under the hardest circumstances. Even without a core beautiful Atemu, Yami, had followed Yugi to the ends of the earth and beyond.

The Seer, waiting on the door step, knocked.

_Cocky bastard_.

Yami gave a warning growl, wrenched the door open and before Yugi could let go of the banister to lurch to him the Champion delivered a hard, well directed, crunching _slap_ to the grinning face.

The teen body the Seer possessed, stumbled back giddily, blinking and at once the toothy grin on the human face had vanished along with the sharp darkness of the eyes. At once there was a befuddled teenage boy on their doorstep blinking dumbly at Yami.

"W-where?" He gasped stupidly as he was wrenched from the possession.

Yugi's shock caught his laugh in a ball in his throat.

"Go home and stop playing with Oujia boards." Yami ordered in a deadpan snapping the door shut.

"D-Did?" Yugi laughed despite himself. "Did you just _slap a Seer out of their meat-sack?_"

"Mayhaps," the Champion quirked smugly over his shoulder, flicking the locks shut easily.

"Ha!" The Faen cackled delightfully. "Oh my god! I love you! I am madly, hopelessly, in love with you!"

"It was kinda cool wasn't it?" Yami grinned wickedly as pounding across the carpet Yugi flung himself back into his arms. The Faen scrambled almost up the Champion, fingers curling through his locks, to drag Yami into a firm haplessly childish kiss.

The Champion gave a smug trill in the back of his throat and riled right back to that joyful place Yugi's core carried him the last inches from affection into attraction. It was a precipice he'd walked with Yami but now he could kiss him guiltlessly it was hard to convince Yugi's core that they should keep their hands off him for more than a moment. He jumped to Yami's touch and there was something about the competency with which Yami protected him which made him nearly lusty in a kind of pearl sheen.

Yugi curled his fingers in Yami's shirt and tugged.

"Hmm?" Yami purred tilting his head.

"Couch or bed. Pick one." Yugi ordered softly.

"Hah," he snorted, "I'm guessing we're not sleeping?"

"Okay, I picked couch," the Faen replied dismissively. "_Scoot._"

The author laughed merrily, nearly flushed, and after Yugi had flicked the lounge room light collapsed on the sofa. In response Yugi was quite brisk to clamber into Yami's lap, hook his hands in the collar of his shift, and straddling his lap eagerly pulled him into a kiss. Their lips smacked, messy, all post-adolescent hormones bubbling and Yugi found himself making a satisfied sound in the back of his throat. Unwilling to break contact he sounded again when Yami's hands skimmed up his leg and wrapped round his waist.

Yugi's soul, his core, was tingling to be closer, impossibly closer, and nearly standing on his knees the Faen attempted to have as much of their forms in direct contact as possible. Yami laughed a little between a kiss at his keenness and with one arm stout round his hips and the other hand grasping behind the younger's neck pulled Yugi back down to sit properly in his lap. The Faen whined, Yami's hand ran under the back of his top, and as Yugi tried to straighten against him again the Champion held him still to pepper light kisses along the column of his neck.

"I don't think you can get any closer," he teased. "You're welcome to try but really."

"Hmm," Yugi tilted under another kiss, "shut up because reasons."

"You've never done this before have you?" Yami appeared to realize softly. "I'm the first aren't I?"

"Ah-huh," he admitted freely, and nestling in a little Yugi forced their foreheads together rather sheepishly. "You were actually my first kiss too."

"_Oh,_" Yami sighed, was that with embarrassment or pleasure? "You were waiting?"

"Jenzar Fraveous had my virginity on layby all through high school." Yugi shrugged.

"I'm totally going to trap you under me on this couch now, okay?" He smiled cheekily floundering under a surge of whatever emotion Yugi couldn't quite identify. "That's way too…_God._"

"Oh no," the Faen chided, hands pushing at Yami's shoulders to force him back sternly into the couch. "You're staying right there."

The author frowned mildly but wouldn't bother arguing with Yugi smiling the way he was. Jenzar Fraveous had a weakness for his smile that Yugi wasn't above exploiting. The younger slipped in his lap and knees hitting the carpet Yami shuffled up a little from his slacker's slouch when Yugi butted at his knees with his palms. The Champion seemed to have his suspicions and rather oblivious of him Yugi rose slightly on his legs, parted Yami's and hooked his finger's round the man's zipper.

"Whoa," Yami caught his wrist quickly, "really?"

"I want to." He murmured insistently up into Yami's eyes and when the author seemed to pause thoughtfully added: "don't you want me to?"

"I breathe air, I'm a warm blooded male," Yami smiled, "of _course _I do. Are _you _sure?"

"You have no idea." Yugi promised certainly teasing. "You know how many years of teenage pregnancy scares I missed being responsible while I waited?"

"It's not fun. I promise." He consoled fingers easing round the Faen's wrist to brush his forearm and the back of his palm. "I guess if you want…"

He grinned tucking his hair back and heart bouncing up an octave darted back to unbuckle the author. The man tensed, Yugi inhaled, and the Faen nearly lost his nerve for a split second before Heba gave him a little push of bravery, falling forward, making Atreyu swoon at the forefront of Yugi's mind.

Yugi had spent years watching Ryou stumbled through romance. He'd watched Kaiba turn his nose up at it. He'd seen girls swoon and boys fawn and since entering university as a badass eclectic Yugi had his share of offers for lovers romantic or not. He'd resisted, steadfast but knowledgeable because of _this_ man. The promise that Jenzar was out there somewhere, his soul mate of four billion years, had assuaged any doubts about being a twenty year old virgin till Yami had ambled into the picture. Carolyn Smith, his serial killer and Kaiba's nunnery buddy had all likewise stayed virgins perhaps unrealistically because they'd been waiting.

Now it was worth it and now Yugi was hungry for old dirty pleasures.

The presence of Heba and Atreyu in him, as him, pressed Yugi with experiences of their own to give him a little flare of courage. Heba gave him the reassurance of prompting: _take the shaft, gentle bucko, run your hand along it and he'll jump_- Yami moaned, head lulling back a little, legs giving out a little to slacken in the seat- _yep, just like that. Typical Jenzar reincarnation! I could play this fool like a flute!_

Yugi tuned Heba out a little, could feel him as he always could, and surrendered more to Atreyu who was his true self as he ran his tongue along the tip. Slick, sticky, salty nearly like sweat and Yugi shivered a little as his opposing hand found purchase on Yami's thigh. Hot, hard, apparently the author appreciated being waited for Yugi supposed with a grin. It must've been an old strain of Yami's possessiveness arousing the Champion with Yugi's promises to virginity that left him sacred and safe as this man always seemed to want whatever the century. That was all not to say that Jenzar didn't love them when they were less than pure but Yami's past selves had a habit of wanting to be the 'first man on the scene'. His hand ran weakly along the shaft and Yugi had to admit, Atreyu backing or not, his mind was surprising amounts of filthy considering the thrumming coo he gave on reflex upon settling his lips round the head.

Yami moaned, was lost, totally slouched and fingers digging into the cushions encouraged Yugi to suckle without saying a word. Yugi sighed a little through his nostrils, closed his eyes, and got a taste for Yami rocking ever so slightly on his knees. He could smell the musk of an older man, could taste pre-cum, and rippling inside he was rather lush with it. This was good somehow, satisfying, normal as if licking Yami off was some reward for saving the day. Yugi was sure he must've been four shades of crazy considering the giddiness.

He'd had the dirtiest day dreams about a faceless, unknown, reincarnation of Jenzar Fraveous sometimes a girl, sometimes a guy, and one way or another so long as they had _this_soul they got him hot. Yugi took a little more into his mouth at the thought, Yami purred huskily, a set of fingers carding and curling in his hair till the Faen suckled. Yugi was pretty sure any day for a hot blooded male where a Faen slipped between their thighs and, retrospectively, begged to pleasure them was a pretty stellar weekday.

Yami's fingers tightened in his hair as Yugi ran his tongue along the underside, pushed him back a little, drew him back in and Yugi caught the rhythm to rock on his knees. In effect his lounging King hardly had to thrust with Yugi rocking for him like some subservient, eager to please, whore grateful to service him. Wasn't a bad image actually, Yugi pursed his lips, tightened his mouth a little when Yami hit the back of his throat and the convulsion brought another heady little moan.

He remembered Sanctuary, crawling on his hand and knees deviously under another dinner table between the knobby knees of other Faens and Champions. He remembered finding Jenzar's boots, pushing his knees apart, grinning, and giving the other one _hell_ of a surprise with his evening meal. Faens were mischievous little troublemakers…

Clearly too Yugi remembered Venice a good couple of centuries ago when they'd rambled like rabbits between masquerade balls. Remembered other men stealing his lips in-between drinks, remember what they'd called '_Roman Love_' at the time, remembered that version of Yami tossing him into a garden wall and hefting Yugi's thighs up round his hips under the balcony of a senator. He remembered Yami, Jenzar, challenging far too many people to duels. Remembered floundering like a girl, embarrassed, when that version of Yami had swung them into a Catholic confessional and forced Yugi down onto his knees to '_say his prayers_' during evening mass.

Marquis de Sade eat your heart out Yugi nearly purred, swooning a little, letting Yami direct him with increasingly strong hands. Yugi's hands grasped his knees, allowed the elder full reign to work him, use him, take him and felt his thighs press together in his jeans with sticky, heated, warmth. This man, just this one, could to whatever he wanted to Yugi and, helpless to resist, the Faen was sure there wasn't a thing he wouldn't allow.

"_Ah_…" Breathy, masculine, half a grunt that held so much old testosterone Yugi gave a trill of his tongue along the Champion's arousal as Yami bought him closer again. This man, author, _thing_ made him weak.

Yugi had wondered for a while if he could be aroused by human beings. He'd gone four hundred years without really being tempted, however beautiful the creature tempting, because if they just weren't Jenzar, weren't Yami, then…

"Fuck," Yami hissed, "you've got to be cheating… fuck if I know how but… _Oh_."

Yugi had to make quite an effort not to laugh. What did Yami think this was an extra Faen power? Someone needed to stamp _gullible_ on Yami's forehead in big flashing letters.

Yami was slickening in his mouth, hard. Yugi could taste the sour notes of his arousal more clearly now. He shuddered a little, shivered, and, surprising himself, _wanted it_. The Champion's fingers curled in his hair tighter still, tugging a little, raising the tempo for Yugi to comply with and the sting of the tugged locks was acute in the signals it sent all the way down to Yugi's pelvis. He could get used to this. Yami hit the back of his throat, hips raising as his hand brought Yugi back to meet the flex, nearly fucking his throat and convulsing, coughing with what little space he had, Yugi's hands curled on his knees. Yami fell back a little, hissed, and for some bizarre reason, moaning, Yugi liked the temporary loss of oxygen.

That did it…

Yami purred, fell back weightless, and seemed to spasm, groaning, when Yugi swallowed round him.

"You didn't have to…" he sighed weakly with consideration, and slumping back on his knees to inhale Yugi coloured a little.

"Wanted to," the Faen confessed, bitting the corner of his bottom lip hard as Yami lurched up groggily to grin down at him.

"_Oh_…" He rumbled at the sight of it. "You _are_perfect."

"Why?" Yugi teased. "Cause I swallow?"

"Jesus fucking Christ," Yami groaned. "Stop that. You have no idea how much I want you when you're like this. Where were you hiding all this horny the first time we fake dated?"

"Took serious effort," Yugi confessed mildly, "but good?"

"I'd give you a medal if I had one." The author promised.

"I'll settle for your wallet?" He sassed.

"Do that again and I'll probably say yes." Yami snorted shaking his head.

"I'm totally going to abuse this new power," Yugi laughed, "especially if you're going to pay me for my services."

"I thought that was a Faen duty?" The elder teased, grasping his upper arms to tug him in a little, "servicing his Champion?"

"Hmm," he rolled the sound over at the back of his throat, Yami's lips skirting his barely. "You're hard to resist."

"At this rate I'm going to lock you in a tower."

"Sounds like a good investment," Yugi quirked challengingly, "real estate's big at the moment."

* * *

Atreyu felt himself stretch in his calves as he phased in. He was back to full capacity, unhindered by any well-meaning but inexperienced partners and mad with the thrill of it was riveted for his first mission proper with Jenzar. He wanted that hum of their synchronization that left them so wordless and natural like when he and Atemu, Jenzar, had stormed the laboratory months ago. Yugi had fallen asleep in strong arms, submerged here to the Supernatural side of the Veil, and in a ripple then Jenzar was next to him settling into his armour.

The Champion turned, his tattoo faded and their new disguises settled before the notice of anyone around them. The subjects of this dimension had been momentarily enthralled to miss their arrival upon the scene and pressed together in one of the back rows of a large, parked, school bus Atreyu took a moment to smile at Jenzar.

"Tem," he whispered, as the other's fingers curled round his. Finding his hand under the overlarge sleeve of his hoodie.

"Trey," Jenzar, his Atemu, smiled warmly squeezing his fingers with a quietly booming grin. If there was anything Atreyu knew thrilled the other it was a good, solid, hunt and on a good day Atreyu could clear three in a night.

They were hiding as school children amongst the others in the bus. Atreyu could sense immediately the song of this dimension, see the colours of it, and he knew in a way that wasn't really conscious that there was infection here. It was as if instantaneous to arrival he was uploaded with some knowledge of where the problem was and vaguely what it was. He knew it even if he couldn't tell what shape it would take and Jenzar would be prepared to protect him as he mended the problem whatever the obstacles.

The bus was just one in a set of parked, equally packed, buses stuffed with casually dressed kids and teachers on some empty field. There was a forest in one direction out the opposing window and from Atreyu's not too far ahead of them he was sure there was a rather large log cabin. The children were milling between the buses some inside, some on the grass outside, chatting in the fading sun of an early evening.

It never struck Atreyu as odd that the Natural world sometimes so closely resembled the Supernatural. The Supernatural world had outlasted the various versions of the Natural world, it was more constant, and when souls settled on a planet invariably they ended up shaping in it some fashion to mimic the Supernatural dimensions many of them dreamed of. Every soul could touch beyond the Veil a little after all. Still Atreyu could taste the difference.

In the field a drum beat started, firm and sudden, rattling the students who began gossiping as it pounded round them.

This hunt would be fast.

Atreyu felt as if he could see a wave approaching him very on the horizon, something quick footed and able. He surged with minor panic, knew it was the cause of their trouble, and fumbled next to Jenzar in instinct. The Champion's ears were perked, eye's sharp, and Atreyu could feel the hidden pulse of the Lance of Lazarus just waiting eagerly to be summoned. The Lance was their last option, Atreyu wanted to be more subtle than that but as the drum beat intensified he knew they had hardly any time.

He needed a pen, he told himself, and testing him the dimensional energies resisted his attempt to summon one. There was a brief glimmer of fear, Atreyu could feel what was coming was not to be tarried with, and forcing on the dimensional magic snapped into submission when it found him insistent enough, worthy enough.

He grasped Jenzar's hand, tugged it up, and pulling the lid off the desk pen with his teeth found himself scribbling on the back of the Champion's palm.

"Protection," Atreyu explained, briefly meeting Jenzar's eyes.

This word, which came out of the ether at the prompt of some instinct, was plastered on Jenzar's hand clumsily before he attempted to sprawl it on his own. Jenzar stood in the seat beside him, the gossip was becoming more frantic round them, and out of sight outside the bus up ahead the first scream sounded. The dimension sung louder round Atreyu, hurting at the disturbance, the Veil pained with it and it told him as its energy was internalized through him like a filter what to write and how to use it.

The second scream, a girl, and the children began to panic.

"Multiples," Jenzar hissed knowingly glancing at his hand as Atreyu sprawled the magic key word on his, "point and shout?"

"Point and shot," Atreyu agreed. "Go."

"Roll, I'll take the back," Jenzar always took his back.

Atreyu squirmed out of the seat past Jenzar, ink smudging on his sweaty skin, into the clustered isle and striding strong his aura sent the panicking children back round him as the screams outside began to overwhelm the drums. These things were nasty fast.

Atreyu's feet scampered down the stairs of the bus, Jenzar striding proud and imposingly tall in his stolen skater boy cargo pants if not a little gangly because of the Glamour they were currently under. He pushed out into the wave of hurtling teenagers on the grass of the field, between two parked buses, and didn't bother to ask how this has happened. They were in crisis.

Atreyu barely hit the soft, moist, grass and as three teenagers ran barrelling past him shrieking he only had a second to fling his scribbled hand out in front of him and shout.

"_Sepono!_" He had no idea what it meant or why this was the magic word but it _was_.

The thing was black, bony, nearly eight foot with a gazelle's running feet and at the word it shattered vaporised with a wolf like growling howl.

Jenzar hit the grass no less than a second later behind him taking a strong stance facing the opposite direction thrusting his own hand out in preparation. A second one hissed, twisted, Atreyu could feel it and hear it rustling the grass, a blood clot, surging towards them round the side of the other bus and it changed direction suddenly. There were at least ten of them, crisscrossing the field, closing in now very aware of them.

"Move," Atreyu ordered. The source of the rip in the Veil here, the source of this infection, was the Cabin he just _knew_.

"Three, two…" Jenzar paused, hand hooking in Atreyu's belt behind his own back, to hold them back a second and- "_Sepono!_"

The second one came just round the back corner of the bus to fling at Atreyu's back, where Jenzar was waiting expectantly for it, and it had hardly emerged before the Champion had wiped it clear off the map.

The other creatures howled, teens still slipping and screaming round them, and Atreyu mused briefly the word must be some way of revoking the creatures to send them home to their own dimension. Jenzar released his belt, the means by which he had been telling Atrey to wait a moment, and when he pivoted Atreyu took it as permission to run on his own feet forward through the crowd.

The two buses they were wedged between closed in ahead, in the sea of teenagers fleeing, and Atreyu had to throw his hand over the shoulder of a falling girl to shout at the appearance of a third demon closing in its chase. Jenzar never left him, his heat ever present at the Faen's back, like a magnet locked onto his signature. Even in typhoons, against mammoths, Jenzar had never come unstuck from Atreyu. A Champion could never lose sight of their Faen.

They found serious momentum. Atreyu didn't think a human being in the Natural world could move with as much speed and grace as their hunting pair. They were like lions rumbling and darting through the crowd. One came up on Atreyu's side but as he noticed it lunging Jenzar had obliterated it. His razor sharp man moved in such a way that when they melded together in pace it was mesmerizing. It was addictive to Atreyu to spin and race in this way. It was who he was.

Connies slapped the grass, the night set in, and Atreyu heard the thrum of the drums as a heartbeat of the source of this trouble as they encroached upon the cabin with its' wide open door. Atreyu moved unnaturally up the stairs, seemed to leap, with the uplift of his core and Jenzar was up behind him facing the field, shouting as the demons continued to amass. Atreyu flung his hand out, summoning himself to total power, and the thing hunched over the fire place chanting turned empty yellow eyes to his entrance. It was goat like, nearly a man, white whiskered with hoof like fingers but he hardly had time to contemplate it in detail.

"_Sepono!_" It flew out of Atreyu in a second, just as the chanter spotted him, and shrieking the yellow eyed goat dropped an orb clasped in long spindly fingers.

It shattered while the goat vanished, sending out a wave of power that flung Atreyu back into Jenzar and tumbled them down the cabin stairs, and with its destruction so followed the drum beat pulsating through the air. Jenzar rolled them halfway through the fall, Atreyu ended up on the grass underneath tossed onto his back, and all priorities the Champion secured himself on one elbow with his hand out defensively.

Jenzar's eyes flickered, Atreyu caught his breath and in a heartbeat threw his head back to gaze upside down at the world.

"Gone." Jenzar decided curtly, business orientated, but glancing down at him broke into a beam. "In record time."

They hardly needed full words. It was magical the flourish with which they could flow straight to the crux of a problem so effortlessly. Atreyu smiled, felt radiant, under Jenzar and could not have been more himself if he tried.

* * *

1 Jaden, Leon and Yugi were giggling about the video games Portal 1 and 2 as well as Charlie the Unicorn youtube videos.

2 Marquis de Sade is a French revolutionary writer who…(laughs) Oh kids if you haven't heard or read anything by him it's probably for the best. Let's just say they named Sado-Masochism after _him_.

3 'Enthralled' is something fairies or other supernatural creatures used to reportedly do to humans. It's like stunning, hypnotising, brainwashing….

4 _Sepono_ is a Latin verb it basically means to '_put away from one's self_', disregard or isolate.

5 'Glamour' was popularised in Harry Potter. It's when a supernatural being puts on a disguise.

Okay so, proper lemon next chapter and some… good/bad news depending on your perspective. I don't think it's anything dreadful but we'll see what you guys think. Have fun Beautifuls and don't forget to go give _Gambit_ a taste for me!


	22. Taking the Plunge

Hey Guys! Updates are late tonight so sorry for that. Important info at the end of this chapter so please take a peak so I can keep you lovely things up to date.

* * *

Chapter 22: _Taking the Plunge_

Drea was swimming inside himself, the pain had reached an all-time high and he knew he was almost there. His soul was giving up on returning to his body on the mortal coil. His body, presuming one of his current reincarnation's family had found it, may spend decades in a coma waiting for his soul to return to it. He might be free of the reincarnation cycle for years if he could hold out a little longer.

If he slipped out of Zorc's little dimensional hot pocket of a black spot however Ammit would have a few choice words for him. A Sequester avoiding his duty? Trying to break his cycle? He could be imprisoned for a term in Limbo like the secret breakers he forced into their next reincarnations. A guard amongst the prisoners would not be pleasant. Drea would be shamed.

He lay sprawled still on his stomach. He was vaguely aware that he wanted to roll onto his back but hardly had the strength to force himself and with his face locked under a thick sheen of sweaty, tangled, hair he was too hot in the little nest Zorc had built for him. How did anyone have the power to do this? To hide from Gods? If Zorc could do this then maybe he would come through. Drea was sure he would have to pay something substantial in return but he would risk the price. Everyone wanted something but for what Zorc was offering, however he planned to achieve it, Drea would sacrifice.

There were steps round him, not far off, Zorc must've returned but loosening himself to become limp Drea gave a ruse of unconsciousness when he picked up the double set in the pace. Zorc wasn't alone. Was Drea strong enough to fight right now? He counted his heart beats, heard someone brutish in their swaggering gait push at the curtain round where he lay.

"Who's _that?_" It was aloof, nearly condescending, and Drea was too busy playing dead to be insulted by whatever scum was pretending not to be wary of his existence. It was a front, that confidence, Drea could sense it in the syllables. He could taste fear.

"Do they frighten you?" Zorc teased.

"Of course not!" The man snapped.

Drea extended his senses. It was a Seer or some other child of Lilith given the chill that followed them with the undertone scent of putrid meat. Drea hated Seers. What cocky thing had Zorc dragged into his hide out? Seers weren't usually strong unless they were female. If this was a male Seer with a strong wave of a core then it could only be of a few types.

"Looks like garbage." The Seer scoffed. "Do you eat Sequesters?"

"Leave it be." Zorc ordered his voice slipping down from a purr to a rumble that broke the human ruse of his voice into the layers that made him sound like a talking lion. Drea fought not to tense.

"Fine," the Seer sneered, and given their sass Drea quite guessed it was literally a Child of Lilith type. Nasty annoying fuckers he knew from experience.

Did Drea recognise his voice? Just vaguely? He racked his memory.

"What is this all about?" Oh yes, Drea knew that voice from somewhere.

"Atreyu and Jenzar destroyed Cassidia." Zorc answered more mildly.

"What else is new?" _Akefia_, it had to be, Drea was sure of it.

"There's no new Queen for Earth yet." The World Eater added.

"The nests nearest Earth will be fighting over claim for months." Akefia mused. "What of it? I'm growing impatient."

Uneasy more like. Akefia was one of the wiser Children of Lilith. A cunning enough fool to stay out of Drea's clutches and Atreyu's. He'd walked a fine line near big players while consistently securing himself little victories. He'd quite caused chaos in Earth's Egypt in the early settlement of the planet. A smart son of Lilith was never a good thing and Akefia knew well enough apparently not to want to take his chances with Zorc.

"You could be King."

"A Seer King?" Akefia baulked mockingly. "It would never happen. I don't have the power when I astral project. Don't speak nonsense."

"I'm going to grant that child their wish to make Jenzar Fraveous their own possession. Who says I couldn't give you enough strength to be a King amongst your sisters?"

"Jenzar Fraveous?" Akefia mulled. "Oh now I _know_you're some mad scum churner from the edge of the galaxy."

"Grant me a service and I will lend you enough power to rule a nest. For quite an epoch if you're careful in your dealings with Faens." Zorc tempted.

Drea felt sand on the sheets under him and tried not to worry his fingers lying dead like a piece of driftwood at sea. Could Zorc really do that? What would he get for it? It would change the rules of the game doubtlessly but why would he change them this way? Why take Jenzar from Atreyu? Why make a Seer King? What was the point of any of it? What did Zorc hope to gain? Fascinated, a detective at heart, Drea knew he would be trapped here in this faux hell till he unravelled the mystery.

"How?" Akefia supposed carefully. Greedy swine, trust _Akefia Tozokuo_ to take his chances and gamble on a power gambit coming his way from some unknown thing. Still Drea knew he was a hypocrite for chastising the Seer when he was following the same course.

"Allow me occasion to borrow your Natural World vessel. It has the strength to bear me. Once I'm done I will leave you a trace of my power to conquer your sisters."

"Let you _posses me?_" For creatures that did so often Seers were frequently quite offended at such suggestions. Drea wondered meanly if it was like incest to the bottom feeders who called themselves the kin of supervisor Goddess Lilith.

"For say three days?" Zorc offered nonplussed by Akefia's disgust. "Sufficient time to settle my affairs and leave you with the appropriate amount of power you require."

Drea could nearly see the filthy Seer consider the dangling, potent, offer for power and dominion. Cunning, shrewd, Akefia would surely love to cause such chaos if it was within his reach but Seers trusted no one. They were weak in character. Could Zorc secure himself one as a vehicle?

"On the condition you leave my Ferryman untouched," Akefia specified carefully, and Drea wondered if it was from genuine affection or concern at least as much as a Seer could possess. "I'll expect a deposit to be assured of your… ability to pay up."

"I can give you a sample." Zorc acknowledged. "A temporary gift will not be nearly enough to be a King however should you think of abandoning your end of the bargain."

"I wouldn't dream of it." Akefia sassed snidely.

* * *

Yugi didn't mind being awake cross legged on the bed, scrawling '_Sepono Hunt_' in the planner, while Yami hibernated under the quilt. The author had this weird, breathy, nearly-snore sound he made when he was just between consciousness and unconsciousness that was moderately fascinating to someone who'd slept alone for twenty years. Near ten in the morning Yugi's inner jitter bug was contemplating various simultaneous options: tumblr, baking, shower and gym. All sounded pretty good but he wasn't sure of the order yet. Really those four options sounded like a perfect summation of the three loudest voices in his head: Yugi preferred a morning on tumblr, Carolyn had some oddly compulsive addiction to icing, Heba was lavish enough to steal all the hot water and Atreyu was never ever finished training.

There was really odd layering inside his head. He was aware of the other three voices that weren't really his own but at the same time they were so totally him it was bizarre to think of them as separate entities. Yugi brushed the thought back though because it was way too early to get metaphysical.

What Yugi did mind was the hour and half later when they were stuck in the car, cruising the high way with McDonalds while his stomach did eighty an hour backflips behind his bellybutton. Why was Yugi doing this today? Carolyn Smith felt like she might bust one of his veins with throbbing anxiety at the back of his mind. He bit his nail. He hadn't done that since he was nine.

"You look like you're going to puke." Yami announced warily from the driver's seat, eyes flickering off the road, generations of instinct telling him to coddle the Faen when Yugi got that look in his eyes. "You okay?"

"It's just been like…" Yugi shrugged, a little lost. They were an hour into the drive there was no point turning round now. Besides, stubborn as a mule, would Yugi's backbone really let him run away? "I'm just really fucking nervous."

"You were just trying to keep him safe," the author mulled, "he'll understand. He's your Grandpa right? He's got to love you. You're family."

That had always been Yugi's policy, certainly, he made family units and then he protected them viciously. Atreyu did not give up on kin, Atreyu did not leave kin behind if bombs were coming down, Atreyu would rather die than abandon children, lovers, brothers or sisters and Yugi had inherited it naturally enough. Still…

"I just don't want to make him cry." Yugi muttered, canines scrapping cheese out from under his nail anxiously. "I mean how the hell am I supposed to explain fucking off for two years? I can't tell him about the Seers or you because it'll break the Secrecy Pact. I can't give him a good excuse."

"He raised you. He'll get it." Yami pacified. "He might think I'm a bad influence or something but whatever. I'm a big boy I can take it. You'll never forgive yourself unless you patch this up. You've got to miss him."

"Of course I do," Yugi sighed slouching, he missed everyone he couldn't see or hold from a myriad of life times. It was a soft insistent burn of longing his memory facilitated. "I just hate that he has to deal with my crap. He deserves a decent explanation and all I can give him is veiled _stuff_. He's going to think I joined a gang or something."

"That or I'm a sugar daddy," the author offered with a soft grin. "Totally feel free to blame me for stuff okay?"

"I think I'll let Grandpa do all the shit flinging today." He snorted.

"So just say '_Yes Sir'_and don't make eye contact eh?" Yami teased gently. "Sounds like the last time you introduced me to your father in Venice."

"Heh," he smiled tightly, "well you were kinda a perv that life time. Licked the Bishop's daughter and everything."

"Hey, Kame Game Shop right?" Yami muttered as they rounded the suburban corner and the store front came into view.

"Yep," Yugi sighed, stomach churning.

The store front hadn't changed from what he could see over Yami's shoulder when they pulled up. Yugi had almost worried for a second that Grandpa would've sold the place but the very concept seemed inhumane and insane where the Motou family was concerned. Grandpa had escaped the loss of Yugi's parents by holding the store together, had escaped the loss of his wife years before that by starting the store, and upon Yugi's disappearance after high school surely there couldn't be another copping mechanism.

Yugi had nearly tangible flashbacks of putting on his _'happy-game-face'_ to go down stairs for breakfast after a night crying and exorcizing he'd snuck home from. He'd been a liar in this house really. In an odd way he'd been Atreyu pretending to be some goody-two-shoes happy-go-lucky school boy named Yugi Motou. Grandpa had been so good at supporting him till Yugi learned to protect the old man from it. Grandpa had let him exist without medication without judgement. He deserved the best, most joyous, face and attitude Yugi could give him and for all of his final year fighting Seers away from the house Yugi had striven to always be positive for the old man. Grandpa had gotten a child who passed their finals with flying colours because he deserved it not really because Yugi's heart was desperately in it for his own reason. He got smiles when Yugi was heartbroken and vengeful. Yugi didn't regret that.

Then when Yugi couldn't pretend really to be normal much longer, when he needed a home to go to where he could unwind as Atreyu without a mask, when the Seers really set in… he had ditched the old man to run off to Tokyo for the sake of both of them. Survival was the key. Sometimes Yugi felt like he was his own drill sergeant but as the tape played in his head, the justifications, he found he held his chin a little higher. He'd done this for the best reasons he could think of. He'd stick by those reasons even if Grandpa never knew or never believed him Yugi had done what he had thought was best to keep them alive. Atreyu was not easy to shame and Yugi had long ago learnt to accustom himself to saving the day with no credit or recognition.

All Yugi could regret was his own fear which had kept him from giving Sugoroku Motou some tangible sign that he was alive and well. He wasn't guilty in his own mind then but rather he feared the rejection and the anger which the old man would be validated in feeling when they met each other now.

'_We've always held our head high,_' Atreyu decided, '_we can do this. We can face the ramifications of our decisions._'

Yami was right, unsurprisingly, Yugi would never forgive himself if he didn't do this and Atreyu was right too because he _could_ do this. Sugoroku Motou had been an adventurer, he had skipped continents to leave Yugi unsupervised while he played at Indiana Jones well into his sixties and seventies, he would just have to understand Yugi's own adventures.

"We good?" Yami checked, switching off the rumble of the ignition.

"Let's do it." Yugi inhaled bolstering.

0000

Yami's better judgement was to offer to stay in the car but Champion code, that immortal instinct, wouldn't let him leave Yugi unassisted in a situation so trying.

Yugi had a natural bounce in his step, a stride, like he was about to knock someone's head off or give an inaugural speech. Yami since regaining his core had felt his own shoulders lift with self pride, had felt his own step lengthen, and his natural saunter had become infused with swag. Everything here, on this planet, was something for them to face head on and together.

They crossed the pavement, jingled the store bell as Yami unhooked the latch of the door, and in the afternoon sun he could have just a second to survey the layout of the room. It was a cute little store with a great abyss of a house hidden behind it. Shelves of board games, electronics, action figures, dice… lots of colour, lots of plastic, lots of love to the point Yami could sense the gently wafting inklings of good intent in every corner. This was some kind old ladies' cottage in the woods but for the twenty first century.

The old man at the counter, bot bellied and white bearded, was serving a boy and his mother so shuffling Yugi in behind him Yami took the distraction as an opportunity to mark entrances and exits. It was weird, still surreal, for Yami to position himself at such a spot in the store that he could easily face an unforseen threat. It wasn't even that he thought anything bad would happen. It was more as if, like some ex-marine, Yami couldn't diffuse the military body-guard style from his bones. He didn't want to have his back to the door, he didn't want Yugi out of sight behind him unless there was a threat in front of them, and he found himself following without thinking these days so Yugi was never out of arms' length. He was a Champion, that didn't stop when he was awake, that meant he was always vigilant for whatever enemies the armies of chaos would pitch against them.

Yugi took a spot by the Duel Monsters cards, Yami stationed behind him, and waiting patiently they followed, without ever raising their eyes, the motions of the mother and child at the counter. That was another skill Yami had recently learnt: looking without looking and using his magic to sense every inch.

Sugoroku had a lovely aura, a nice vibe, something kind that tingled round him like a bell and he was aware that the old man was aware of them as he packaged the woman's purchases. He didn't say anything however till they were out the door and turned onto the street.

"Yugi?" He called and awkwardly both he and the young man seemed quite unsure how to start this conversation.

"Hey," Yugi shrugged, grasping his own elbow in one palm. Yugi had been biting his nails the whole way over, they looked sore, Yami wanted to kiss them better but he let the Faen lead as his hands found his own pockets.

"What are you doing all the way out here?" Sugoroku Motou laughed a little, light hearted, but there was a glassy note to his eyes.

"I, um," Yugi laughed awkwardly, "I settled up my shit finally. I wanted to come say Hi."

"Let me know you're not dead in a ditch somewhere?" The old man suggested, slightly firmer, and Yami knew under that kind face this man didn't undervalue the pain of the past two years without any contact with his only living relative. He'd been hurt and worried.

"I'm sorry," the Faen sighed, "I got in some trouble I had to sort out for myself. I didn't want to make you get involved. It was my fault."

"Seto and Ryou told me as much," Sugoroku shrugged with some understanding and a little dumbstruck Yugi fumbled, "they send me Christmas cards. Good kids. Told me not to worry."

"Should've guessed," Yugi snorted, and Yami actually found it pretty typical that Ryou and Kaiba would take up in secret to help their war wary leader when he couldn't help himself. Not for the first time Yami found himself glad they were friends with Kaiba. Jackass or not he took this family coven as seriously as Yugi did.

"Well flip the sign why don't you," the old man ordered with a ruffle of the whiskers, "ain't going to be done talking for ages I don't think."

Sugoroku's tone had wavered, he'd let Yugi a little off the hook and all that stern seriousness was receding now the pain had flashed pronounced through Yugi's eyes. The Faen chuckled at his order weakly and as he turned Yami found himself already at the door flipping over the _'Open'_ sign to _'Closed'_so the smaller, the younger, didn't have to stray away from his conversation. Yugi smiled at him in thanks and Sugoroku caught it.

"Who's your friend?" He pestered.

"Grandpa this is Yami Sennen," Yugi gestured cautiously, and as Yami wondered if perhaps Yugi had restrained himself from letting an aging traditionalist in on the nature of their union he perceived the warmth rolling off the Faen and how the old man received it.

"Went off and found yourself a fine piece of ass did ya?" Sugoroku challenged brazenly but not cruelly.

"Grandpa!" Yugi shrieked his Faen's grace and the tinder sweetness of his smile for Yami retracting.

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Yami intervened excitedly, thrusting his hand out and finding Jenzar's bold, enthusiastic, smile burning across his face.

"Oh you're a good one, aren't ya?" Sugoroku laughed suddenly, surprised by Yami's transparent joy, taking his hand stoutly. "Oh! Loosen up there kid! I've got crippled old hands!"

"Oh! Sorry!" Yami panicked instinctively and chuckling the old man brushed him off good humouredly. Yami was still getting used to how Jenzar's power affected his body. He was a lot stronger than he used to be.

"Just your type," he told Yugi waggling his finger between them, "can tell."

"You think?" The Faen supposed curiously, mildly bamboozled.

"Oh very much so," Sugoroku nodded, "seems a little less than human and a bit more like a weirdo if you know what I mean?"

"I…" Yami tensed, taunt himself, coiled. Yugi didn't appear to know what to say or how to explain. "Grandpa I… I'm sorry. I know I should've called more. I know I worried everyone but…I…"

"It's okay. It's okay," the old man assured, placated, mildly. "I know. You can't tell me. I guessed as much. I figured you'd be okay, you always are, I've just missed having you around but obviously you had a job to do. I don't know what exactly, never will, but I get it: it's important. You're important. Your slack jawed piece of ass over here is important."

There was a reality shattering moment of obscure, total, silence and utterly uncertain Yami's gaze wavered between Yugi and his Grandfather. He'd expected a lot of things, yelling and crying mainly, but not this bluntness. What did Sugoroku know? Did he know anything? Yami was scouring over security details but Yugi, mouth open, transformed as if a weight had been ripped off him.

"You're wonderful," Yugi exalted in amazement, swallowing over that contained contraction in his throat that was the Faen's guard against tears. "I'm so sorry."

"Oh don't be!" Sugoroku snorted, leaning into the counter. "Let's be honest here Yugi you and I have always known you had bigger problems than this silly old man. You were just playing house here. I knew it the day you were born, so did you parents, I got over it a long time ago."

"You did…?" He breathed cautiously octaves falling. "What do you mean?"

"Well," Sugoroku chuckled and gestured to Yami as he spotted him, "sit! Sit! You want to hear all the old family stories?"

"Hell yeah!" Yami laughed, mind racing, pulling his ass upon another display counter at Sugoroku's warm order and fascinated didn't bother to approach Yugi as the Faen leant heavily into the front counter. Yugi almost seemed to be reaching, hungrily, for whatever secret Sugoroku had been keeping that Yugi thought he was unaware of.

"When your mother was pregnant," the old man began to the Faen, "everyone thought you'd be a girl. I did too for a while mind but then I had the funniest dream. I don't remember much but, call me superstitious, when I woke up you might as well have slapped me round and said: _listen up you old codger I'm coming so you better get sorry ass ready!_"

Yami snorted. That sounded about right. Even Atreyu seemed to admit it when Yugi giggled breathlessly.

"You get a vibe about babies but when _you_ were born the whole…_energy_ of the room changed. I think it scared the pants off your mother. Some mornings I think you scared them. You were…too _old_ for any of us, the second you came out, just looked at us like you were losing your patience with us already.

Sometimes I wondered if all those trips of mine, all the temples and the tombs had invited something _less_ than human to follow me home. Probably did really. Sometimes I wondered if you'd switched the little girl your Mother was supposed to have with you, Changeling maybe, but…" Sugoroku smiled. "You light up. You're a _good_ soul. I don't doubt it for a minute. I don't think I'll ever understand it or where you came from and frankly I don't think I _want _to but whatever you do your parents and I loved you just the way you are. Wasn't what we were expecting here in quiet little Domino but we never would've traded you.

I think, really, we both knew you were always going to escape. When you told me you were…seeing things. The way you spoke about it, I thought to myself: _right, well, someone's done this before I think. _I just figured wherever you came from had come looking for you, needed you back, and wanted to take you home. I've never really expected you to potter off and get married and be an accountant. You were always going to go off and find whatever _he_ is and do whatever you do. I trust that. I don't trust myself to ever understand it totally but, well, I'm a senile old bat. You're happier right now than I think I've ever seen you, just rolls off you, makes you more like yourself. A little _more_ than human, which you've always been, and I'm just glad you hid here for a while."

"I want to part of your world again," Yugi swore reverently, "I can do it again. Things are better. We can pretend to be normal again."

"Sounds good to me." Sugoroku shrugged merrily, easy, utterly disposed and unknowing. "Got a new boy for me to use as manual labour too, just thought you'd take one home with ya?"

"Heh, yeah," the Faen laughed. "We're…we're good with each other."

"Old friends…?" The old man guessed knowingly and all at once Yami could see how deep that innocent insight of Sugoroku's ran when Yugi's face, unconstricted by secrets, could light up at the recognition.

"_Ancient_ friends," Yugi concurred.

"Well it'll be good to have you back," he smiled, patting at Yugi's tense fingers on the counter. "Having things like you, Kaiba and Ryou and him over there, makes me feel young like I'm on another excavation, little bit of danger and all."

"You are a perplexingly wonderful old man…" Yami found himself unable to restrain in praise. They'd been reincarnated thousands of times, millions and billions, and rarely did he remember a soul so permissive to their oddities.

"I like to think so." Sugoroku nodded curtly, a little gruff but twinkling. "How about some lunch? You can lie and tell me all the _normal _things about him."

"Ha!" Yugi cackled, relieved and almost weightlessly glittering over his shoulder at Yami. "That sounds about right. Yami had a gambling addiction in high school?"

"Well then!" The old man crooned. "He'll fit right in! I'll get the cards!"

* * *

Yami was going to get fat from home cooked meals. Shuffling down in the sunbed by the pool he let his sunglasses slip a little down his nose. It had been two months since he'd won Yugi. Two months, _holy shit_, he swallowed greedily round weekend air.

"What's with the trampoline?" He inquired of Kaiba lazily by his shoulder in the next sunbed both hands flat on his own bare belly.

"Meh, end of tax year soon," the Watcher grumbled carelessly.

Mokuba shrieked a little as Jaden came down on the opposing side of the black stretch of the trampoline. They were basically the same age. They'd taken quite a liking to each other actually and barefooted on the trampoline in the backyard Mokuba was trying to teach Jaden, the royal spaz, how to back flip supposedly. This must've all been quite a grand escape for a high schooler like Jaden from middle suburbia. It was good this way. It kind of pained Yami to know there were Watchers, Reapers and who knew what else across the planet who couldn't feel like themselves because they had to play at being normal twenty-four-seven. It gave him an odd glimmer of smug satisfaction to know at least with his books on the shelves they didn't all feel so alone.

"Yugi's birthday soon too," Kaiba reminded himself with a sigh, "fuck."

"Fuck," Yami laughed, _two months_. He had to let that all settle before his mind could properly digest it.

"The coven's grown." The Watcher groaned next. Apparently it was Yami's fault.

Yami would take that accusation from Kaiba given it was a great afternoon and he was accustomed to the Watcher blaming him for inconvenience. Under Yami's lazy glance Leon gasped up through the surface of the pool, Joey cackled, and rebelling the other lunged back to try and dunk the blonde American in turn. Leon missed, Joey waded back on longer legs, and unsteady the blonde nearly fell over when the plastic ball collided with the back of his head. Ryou laughed, sinking to his nose, as Joey spun round to find his latest attacker.

Yugi was not yet embroiled in their aquatic warfare. Leaning into his arms, legs kicking the water, on the ceramic edge of the pool those mermaid thighs Yami loved were glistening from all the water sports. He looked happy. Actually, more than that, Yugi _was_ happy Yami could sense. He sunk back a little in his seat, shoulders slumping, stomach quelled with Champion's pride at that. His Faen was content with the blissful level of normalcy they'd established this life time.

"Can't get Joey to move in," Kaiba grunted, slipping one hand behind his head. "I don't get what the fucking problem is."

"You should get him out of his place," Yami approved languidly, "that apartment's a national health hazard."

"I know," the Watcher conferred with a scoff. "I don't get this girly commitment fear of his. Fucking cold feet."

"Meh," the Champion shrugged, "he's independent. He probably doesn't want to have to depend on you for a place to sleep if you have a blowout."

"We're not going to have a blowout." Kaiba grunted. "If we were going to have a blowout it would've been _months_ ago. The job interviews over for fuck's sake."

"Chill," Yami chuckled. "What's it matter if he wants to wait a little longer? Not like you're getting his dowry when he shacks up with you."

"Not like I need it either." The Watcher reminded. "Besides, you don't get to tell me to chill you fucker. You and Yugi pussyfoot for months and then, as far as Joey knows, the day you start dating properly you move in to play house. Far as Joey knows you skipped half the build-up and flew straight to old married couple."

"It's awesome." The Champion grinned wickedly slipping both hands behind his head to cradle his skull as his ankles crossed. "My mother thinks I'm nuts."

"Argh," Seto grumbled, "Disney."

Maybe he was right a little but Yami could hardly care. His mother liked Yugi, was chirpy with him, but Yami knew her well enough to recognise her hesitance. She thought Yugi was too young, thought there was too much of a wage gap, and he didn't doubt she put his sudden flirtation down as a quarter-life to early thirties crisis or wooing by a gold digger. She'd only be convinced with time and tribulation but then she'd come round. Yugi's Grandfather got it a little better but only because he seemed to comprehend that Yugi was generally bizarre. He didn't expect them to work on standard rules of engagement. So long as Yami didn't manhandle his boy the aging gambler seemed to expect his only grandchild to prefer the company of older male lovers and approve enough.

Joey was… Well, as far as the Yugi Situation was concerned, he was harmlessly smug. He'd been hazing Yami for months to make the leap and cement flirtation into romance without ever getting the low-down on the actual truth of the matter. Now he was by far their most vocal supporter but he and Kaiba seemed to have stalled a little. It was healthy. If relationships were races Kaiba and Joey had certainly been more linear, they'd gotten laid already, but while Yami tangled with _that_ sexual hurdle with Yugi he was content with the bigger issues they'd just started to encounter. It would all work out. He had absolute confidence.

"What did you end up doing with your place?" Kaiba pestered with a sigh.

"Still renting it," Yami shrugged. "We swapped some of the furniture between the houses but other than that it's the same just empty. I just want somewhere we can run to if something happens, you know? That probably sounds stupid but whatever."

"Supernatural safe house is different to a guns and security cameras kind of safe house." The Watcher actually agreed with him. That had to be a first. "Send the bills and I'll pay the rent."

"Nah, it's fine," the Champion grunted.

"I'm being a selfish prat," Kaiba retorted, "I want somewhere I can crash too if something nasty shows its ugly fucking head. Just let me pay your goddamn rent."

"Heh," Yami chuckled lightly, "if you want. I'll email you."

"Good." Kaiba could be so business in board shorts it was astounding. All he needed now was an ear piece for his cell phone and a cocktail and the Watcher could have his own James Bond movie subplot. "Anything from Drea?"

"Hmm?" He perked as if stung.

"Your other runt," Kaiba reminded, "he wasn't at your coming back victory party. Have you heard from him since we thrashed Cassidia?"

"No…" Yami mumbled. "I haven't seen him. I think he's pissed at me."

"Probably."

Yami supposed he never should let it be said that Kaiba was anything but totally unsupportive in situations that required any level of emotional depth. Groaning he slumped back heavily and sealed his eyelids behind his sunglasses. Ruing it Yami had to consider Drea was probably the one unsatisfactory blip on his radar. It was no one's fault really but it was the truth of the matter. Drea was unhappy somewhere, Yami just knew it, and he wouldn't see head or tail of the Sequester till Drea had a good scream somewhere in peace.

Drea, he mulled, was their little prodigy. Nephele was very competent, Morphis occasionally crippled by insufficient confidence and flippancy but Drea could spit lightning, hogtie Champions, smell fear and taste dishonesty. It was frightful too how clearly Yami could picture Drea now when he closed his eyes. He had known Nephele, Morphis and Drea so long that at every impasse he could recall them in almost holographic detail. He could summon Drea's earthen, metallic, smell that came with sweat and leather. He knew the gritty feeling of the sand flecked in the Sequester's thick dark hair that tumbled round his shoulders.

Drea was so akin to them physically. Nephele looked almost Swedish in his Astral form, like Hitler's dream boy, a wisp while Morphis too seemed to have fallen into their lap from another continent but Drea was almost the composite of Atreyu and Jenzar. He was their features smashed and melted together. Cheroke-Spanish skin, chocolate maroon eyed, teetering along a limit of sensual but yet utterly childish, docile, and small to Jenzar with a sweetheart face and a slender athletic build that looked as if it could carry more on its shoulders than Atreyu.

The sleeveless coat Drea wore, the mishmash of black and grey textiles with an almost bustle back, gave him the appearance of having freshly escaped some steam-punk world as if he'd fought himself out of the womb at the origin of time. Those worn gloves he always wore smelt like a nursery to Jenzar, to Yami, and those strings of beads round Drea's hips were knickknacks and trophies of battles won all at once. Drea had always felt rather Arabic, always sauntered, and didn't seem to mean to be sensual half the time he just was. Dangerous details made him appear venomous rather than brittle just as Trey looked soft and felt hard. There was a good heart there.

How many times had Yami tucked Drea as a bundle into bed? How many times had Drea had some version of that ridiculously creepy rabbit doll he loved and Atreyu kept sewing for him? How many times had this one made their other two cry or cried himself? Devious and honey sweet and wanting to be wanted. Yami might've intimidated Morphis but Drea intimidated _him_.

Drea's problem was what Drea's problem had always been. Drea had no one. He was so stable in his personality, himself, and as a Sequester he remembered eternity. Nephele and Morphis had mastered finding appropriate companions to scratch their romantic itches throughout reincarnations. Atreyu and Jenzar, Yugi and Yami now, were bound to each other forever. Yet Drea, who was one of them, had no one to match him. Jenzar knew Drea wanted a proper lover, for lifetimes rather than just years, someone to remember centuries with. Drea was the lone vampire, the companionless immortal, the Doctor with no girl, the troublemaker who wanted a stabilizer. Jenzar would've done anything to give it to him, Yami felt that ache, and when Atemu had seemed like such a good option he knew that right now Drea must've been mourning dreadfully for another lost opportunity to happiness.

There wasn't much that Yami could to though. As Jenzar Fraveous knowing he couldn't help someone made him feel nearly impotent but it was true. He couldn't find Drea unless Drea wanted to be found and what was he going to do? Play supernatural matchmaker? If there was something that could've been done Yugi, Atreyu, would've done it centuries ago but there was no easy solution. Some things weren't guaranteed and love most assuredly couldn't be forced to manifest.

"Oomph!" Yami lurched a little as a bundle of long legged, soaking wet, Faen sprawled across his lap with weighted impact.

Yugi's arms secured snug round his neck, equally drenched on Yami's dry skin, and pulling himself up on the sunbed the Faen rather suddenly over lapped their bodies to pepper Yami's cheek bones with kisses.

"I've caught a fish," Yami snorted, recovering enough to push his sunglasses back atop his head as he meet Yugi's eyes when the smaller knocked their noses. "You okay?"

"Just wanted a hug," Yugi shrugged, slumping against him.

The Faen had deceptively sharp senses. Every dip in Yami's mood seemed to bring Yugi tumbling into his lap whether the smaller realized it himself or not. There was a string that tugged them closer when they needed support. Instinct said that if something was wounding, painful, then they needed to cluster together and fight it off. So Yami squeezed Yugi closer, caught a kiss, and felt his heart contort with syrupy joy despite his attempts at self-restraint. Seriously at this rate if Yami got anymore love-struck and sappy he was going to have to surrender his Man Membership card back to the union.

"Can we go home in a bit?" Yugi whispered against the shell of his ear gently.

"Yeah sure," he consented. "Everything okay?"

"I just don't feel good." The Faen mumbled into his neck. "Something's not right."

"Like what? What's wrong?" The Champion pestered. The whole rest of the world seemed to shrink into a singularity: Yugi. Nothing else outside the uncertain, uneasy, face of the Faen seemed to exist to Yami's six or seven senses.

"I just…" Yugi frowned, fingers straying awkwardly on Yami's bare clavicle as they bundled up into each other to whisper like school kids in a corridor corner. "I don't know. It's like something in the water's off. Like… I don't know… the Veil feels tense. I think the Supervisors are _something_. Worried maybe?"

"Big tear in the Veil?" Yami suggested, palm skirting up and down Yugi's upper arm almost anxiously.

"No…" the Faen considered thoughtfully. "I can't feel one but there's…I don't know, something weird, like a tumour?"

"Tumour?" He blinked.

"There's this chunk on the Supernatural side of the Veil, that's just sitting there, and I _think_ it's a dimension but it's like it's shrivelled up and died. I can't…" Yugi paused. "I can't feel into it. It's like it's quarantined."

A realm in the Veil that wasn't permeable? A realm along the Supernatural side of the Veil, near Earth, that a Faen couldn't read the symptoms of or glance into couldn't be good. Yami had never heard of such a thing and scanning Jenzar's memories neither had the oldest piece of himself. Not since the very earliest days of the first life however when things were sketchy at best and rules slim.

"If you can feel it it's probably going to be our problem soon." Yami sighed. That was usually how these things worked. Something happened, Yugi picked it up and then Gate Keeper called them in to play fix up. As the skilled powerhouses of Earth fixing this crap was their responsibility. "You look anxious."

"It's bad." Yugi frowned. His eyes seemed to have lost focused as his energy pried along the Veil, fingers nearly mapping it idly on Yami's skin as he leant all his weight into the Champion's protective grasp. "There's big energy. A couple of the Supervisors seem involved. I don't think any of them know what it is."

"Which ones?"

"The Gate Keeper, I can sort of feel Third Star, the Leviathan, Ammit and Gaia." The Faen counted off hesitantly.

The Reaper's God, the Mother Goddess of the Faens, the God of the Watchers, the God of the Sequesters and the Goddess who guarded and supervised Earth as her current pet project. That wasn't good news. It was practically an all-star team of Supernatural big wigs looking into whatever this tumour was that Yugi could sense picking at him.

"You want to go home?" Yami conferred gently.

"What about Jaden?" The Faen worried diligently.

"He'll get a lift. Someone will take him." He deferred guiltlessly. He had absolute confidence in the rest of the coven to secure Jaden home before too much later. Right now Yami's top priority had to be what it so often was: Yugi. The Faen was far too tense in his arms, too unyielding and distant mulling over this thing he could feel.

"Give me another fifteen," Yugi squirmed, shifting out of his arms. "I'm going to take a dip."

Yami would've argued, his better judgement however told him to let the Faen sink back under the surface of the pool. It must've been the mermaid in Yugi but Yami somehow knew from experience that to the younger water was like moonlight in its remedial qualities. The moon controlled the tide of the vast, unknowable and mysterious seas while Third Star watched through the moon. So if Yugi was uncomfortable instinct told that the best thing was to let him glide back, submerge himself, and then plucking the Faen up take him home to kiss and stroke and rock.

Really there was nothing they could do till they were called to hunt so, hands gliding down Yugi's forearms the author let his sneaky come-to-life character drift back and dive with a splash back between Joey, Leon and Ryou. Together, Yami smiled, Leon, Ryou and Yugi could've been a gaggle of mermaids especially given how Ryou's hair clung to him and shimmered out in the water. He sighed, shuffled to sit on the edge of the sunbed now damp from his captured mermaid's fleeting embrace and watched. Mokuba and Jaden had given up on the trampoline and where on their backs in the grass.

He needed to keep them safe. They were too precious. This was too precious.

* * *

Yugi pressed a little idly at his nose stud with the tip of his pinkie and let the back of his thighs dampen the car seat. That old captured lightning wrapped up inside him from his core felt like it was rattling his ribcage. His core was pumping up the stocks of power, getting ready for a fight, like a lizard throwing up its collar and trying to psych itself for a conflict. It wasn't just him either, he was sure, the red pendent which still held the Lance of Lazarus on this side of the Veil was warm on his clavicle and he could feel Yami's spells tighten round his skin.

What would it be this time? The Seers surely couldn't have managed something like this but if Cassidia was any proof they were getting smarter or they had new help. Trepidation was mingled with excitement and cautious Yugi hooked one leg over the other and seemed to feel himself slip back into his mind a little. The oaks lining Kaiba's drive flew in and out of view as his forearm lulled against the door and instinct had taken the captain's seat.

Inside Atreyu was doing the count down: the coven was safe, the other Faens were safe, Earth was safe, the Seers were disorganised and the Supervisors were in cohorts on whatever this oddity was. All the equipment was in line. Yugi had Jenzar, the Lance, his Needle, his core and a whole back up unit of bad-asses to call upon. If anything this would be nothing more than the next big adventure for them to face to now Jenzar was returned. They'd been in disasters before, rectified their share, and this was nothing substantially new but the signals he was getting down the line from the Veil were unsettling. It was like beeps on radar.

His hair was still wet, fringe sticking to his cheeks, when they made it inside the house. Their house Yugi realized. He clutched the towel round him a little tighter, felt a surge of heat and panic mingle, as Yami locked the front door. He was perhaps a little mad, love-struck still, when Yami turned and dropping his towel Yugi grasped the author's cheeks and dragged him down into a sudden burst of contact. Yami lurched subtly, hooked an arm round him, and let their lips mingle firmly as Yugi's teeth scrapped his bottom lip with emphasis.

Yugi found himself fondling every feature of Yami's face with his worried fingertips. Something tiny, scared and desperate was hungering inside him for that exquisite essence of Jenzar bleeding thickly under the skin of the current body he was clinging to. Jenzar who was, thank God, his Yami. _Thank God_. His hand strayed over the curve of Yami's cheek, the strength in his jaw, the column of his neck back up into the tangle of his damp hair to curl and tug him harder into Yugi.

They stopped for a moment with no real prompt, Yugi nuzzling his nose against Yami's, the Faen's body clutching up into the Champion's like he'd done for thousands of years. He missed this. He _had_ missed this he corrected. Yami was home, Jenzar wasn't leaving, and they were safe. They could face another adventure. He repeated the word over and over in his head. '_Safe_' he told himself as his senses told him something dreadful was on the cusp of their sanctum yet, if he was honest with himself, then…

They hadn't truly been '_safe_' since leaving Sanctuary.

At the thought Yugi crushed his lips back against Yami's, cloyed, and took sharp inhalations of his musky scent. Was Yugi scared to fight again? Scared that next time Yami's soul went missing he wouldn't be able to find it? Was this Atreyu Damestaire with stage fright? He couldn't contemplate himself being so weak but wasn't that the magic of Jenzar? Jenzar, the Champion, with who he didn't need a shield or a mask and with who he could be weak and tiny. Yugi's fingers were hooked in Yami's collar, finding skin, practically devouring him.

He wanted this smooth body heat against his, this bigger form, this cool hand arm pillowing his head. He wanted Yami. He wanted Yami properly. No more excuses, no more waiting, something inside his instinct told him it had to be tonight. It was that old animal part of him which always knew where and when the storm was coming from.

"Yugi," Yami sighed into him, squeezing him tighter because the Faen's touch had become so firmly insistent on his skin. Yami's eyes caught his face between kisses and as the Champion's hand ran down the small of his back, over the curve of his arse, fingers tangling in his hair the man seemed to tremble. "You okay? What's wrong?"

"Nothing, I'm okay," Yugi would've said as much if his leg was amputated. Some details of the personality never changed like that. From Atreyu to Heba he was always insistent he could keep going but he still could beg. "I just_ want_ you. I _love_ you."

"I love you too," the man promised, and for a painful second he seemed the scared, unfamiliar, author from the coffee shop months ago but then holding Yugi the man was suddenly himself again.

He seemed to sense the desperation, to taste it on Yugi when he dug his wicked tongue into the Faen's eager mouth and then Yami was his hero again in every motion. Every little touch spiralled memories through Yugi. Windowsills on distant planets, mud trenches, fields and palaces and river banks and forests and the myriad of other locales in which they'd made love under a million different names and starry skies. This was his soul-mate, his immortal companion, Yami had come home and Yugi would be damned if anything ever wedged between them again with the fire the man's touch stirred in every nerve ending withering under his plush skin.

"I need you," Yugi ordered hoarsely, fingers sliding under a damply clinging shirt and under the waist band of worn denim. "Properly."

No more playing around. No more prepping or nervous excuses. Yugi wanted this creature, this man, seated inside him in every tender, intimate, way he could be. He was sick of being shell shocked and hesitant on the edge of the pool. He wanted to be all the way back to who they were. He wanted to be totally Atreyu Damestaire the mate of Jenzar Fraveous. He wanted to _make love_. He needed this. Yugi wasn't himself without this piece of his life he'd been dying at the loss of. Yami deserved to hold him, to take him, to have him utterly as totally as Yugi trusted him and adored him. Yami deserved this reward that was the sole privilege of every Jenzar reincarnation since the dawn of time.

They practically fell, tumbling, into the bed. Stairs? When had they gotten up stairs? Yugi didn't care. His mind was still rewinding over old tapes of memories and trying to sing itself back to serenity with the chant of '_safe_' humming inside him. He was so absorbed in Yami he'd lost cognizance of anything less significant. Really, hadn't everything else always paled in comparison to Jenzar in his focus? This was his only anchor in the universe. As a reincarnation of Atreyu Yugi was _so_ steeled to be the survivor, the superhero, that never ceased but this soul made him stop with screeching, squealing, tires and throw himself into someone else's care for a while. Yami was his shield from all the vulnerabilities of anxieties, nightmares, and paranoia.

Faens could be such wild eyed, vicious, relentlessly ruthless forces without something to make them happy. Vampires, Erlkings, monsters… were just shades of the fairy tales they'd inspired. Yami made him glow, made him crumble into a trembling heap of weak goo even this second as they cleaved together. Yugi wondered if he'd soured, turned gaunt and hollow and sharply dark while Jenzar was gone, become one of those fearsome monsters he fought with all the power of raw lightning or the tempest. Then Yami's hand ran over his cheek as his lips buried hard against Yugi's opposing side and Yugi sighed so sweetly he astounded himself. He didn't ever want this to stop.

Yugi didn't ever want to lose this link which kept him grounded. As Yami breathed into his cheek, lips burning, he didn't know if Yami was aware of just how much he did to keep Yugi's feet on the ground while the Faen's head was in the clouds.

His core crackled, the Lance of Lazarus ate up the power compounding inside his slender body and it almost seemed to be licking its lips as Yami sighed into his earlobe. Yugi felt the cold air on his legs as Yami's fingers hooked in the groin of his shorts and dragged them down to bunch about his knees. He could feel hands hooking round his ankles and slipping off his sneakers, holding him in place with a firm arm about his waist, till the soaked board shorts clunked against the carpet dirtily. Arms were around him again, Yami was pressing off his own knees, heaving them up towards the pillows so Yugi felt the carpet slip away from under his bare toes till he was lying totally in the fold of the mattress. He felt vulnerable surrendering perfectly.

Yami's hands glided over the newly exposed flesh, along the icy bones in his ankles and his hips, pushing at the tender flesh of his navel and then his thighs. Fingers worked their way between his legs to the secretive flesh of his inner thighs and prodded Yugi's legs apart, lifting his knee and then rolling back over it down the path to where his leg met his groin. Yugi's eyes were burning so hot in the darkened room he couldn't see a thing as he blinked. The light from the street lamps was half falling through the curtains as if to remind him of a world outside this insane, weird, place he was burrowed in. Yet Yugi didn't feel as it there was any floor beyond the bed or any stability anywhere in the world expect with Yami.

The Champion's legs came between his, hands grasping his hips, and then the larger, harder, hips were nestled between his thighs with Yami's weight heavy on his belly. The man leant on his elbows, all hot on Yugi, secure and kissing the Faen's forehead idly as the Champion ground his hips down. The Faen squirmed, he found himself making noises, he found the molten heat in his body spreading through his foolish, chilled and shaking form and he found himself drifting into goo.

Yami worked down into him, over and over, till Yugi felt some of the heat coming back into his drying body. His fingers curled in the bedding, panting weakly, cheeks crimson either from desire or Yami's loud pants into his ear. He still could smell chlorine, freshly mowed grass, all imprinted on his bare clammy skin while the pungency of the room ebbed round their grinding forms in the semi-darkness.

He almost felt alright, like he could force his head above water and breathe, but then Yami sat back between his spread legs and began unbuckling his pants and Yugi felt another wave of ice pulse from his heart out. He wanted it in writing somewhere, somewhere solemn, that this man would never vanish, never die, and never drift away through time. Four billion years with Yami couldn't possibly ever be enough and Yugi could blink away tears at the very thought of another separation.

He wanted to look but his eyes drifted and settled intensely on the ceiling. His lids fell shut, eyes watery and hot so that the lids fused. He cycled inside, ice hitting magma, between this hungering for security and this intense, ancient, burn for Yami's body folded with his. He was so happy. He tensed at the brush of Yami's bare thighs on his, even more so as the man's bare groin overlapped his as the author stretched over him to fondle the bedside table.

Then Yami was sitting back again working slick, painfully long, fingers into his taunt body without a word. It wasn't painful anymore. Not after months of teasing, slick limbed and dark fairy tale touches. Instead Yugi felt his form melt as if it wasn't quite physical as if he was turning soluble from now reaching his boiling point. Peculiarity gave way to old primal rush, his stomach flipping round butterflies, as the Champion worked him, stretched him, with a trio of perfectly formed, supernaturally charming, fingers.

Wasn't it Germany where Jenzar's incarnation, Yami's past self, had climbed through his window and plundered him in his bed? With one hand on the Faen's mouth, hips between his thighs rolling as the fairy's parents slept down the hall? Yugi moaned in the current moment. He could never go backwards in time just like he could never skip forward through any trial. All he had was to recreate this beautiful thing, expression, art form, through reincarnations.

All in a second then Yugi was totally invaded with the slimy plunder of hard arousal into snug cleft in the darkness. Gasping he found himself rather fearlessly forced into submission, moaning and drowning, as Yami hefted his thighs about his own hips and took him anew with a searing first thrust. Yugi's fingers were digging holes in the bedding, the ceiling stretched out above his eyes as they speared open, his hair flared over his face, his body rocked into the mattress where he melded with the author. So good…

Skin slapped skin, a sound from the dawn of time reminiscent to Yugi of the crack of the world coming into being, and everything was slid back into place inside his heart. For the first time in four hundred years Jenzar Fraveous, now Yami Sennen, had returned to make love to him. Yugi moaned, head twisting back, rapturously lost in the forest of himself. This was his air. This was everything. This was the closest thing to Sanctuary, to paradise, a mortal body could taste: Yami with him, in him, connected and hot and grinding.

He was praying through hiccupping sighs, staccato moans strung out, with the ancient fire-side rhythm of the man's hips rolling against his delicate inner thighs. Milky skin started to ripple with sweat, took on tang, and in the darkness the grass scent of Kaiba's backyard faded till only a sniff of chlorine remained on Yugi. The Faen's hands tangled cording round Yami's shoulders like ribbons to lace them up by pulling the Champion's firm chest down to brush his pectorals and his belly. Yami panted against Yugi, on his haunches, eyes closed and consumed.

It was _beautiful_. At least Yugi was convinced it all was when his ankles hooked round the man's broad flanks, one hand coiling in Yami's hair as they threaded, sewed, up into one merged, jointed, being. Yugi could let go into this, release the mask and the sword, let himself be completely held. He didn't have to be strong here, didn't have to be anything special but another stupid kid wildly in love. He could revel in Yami wanting him. Yugi could smile through his moans as the man's girth dragged languidly in and out of him.

For the thousandth time he prayed accolades through his purrs thanking whoever had orchestrated it that Yami was the one.

His thighs became molten as the minutes crept on endlessly. Like a ship at sea. It was like an itch waiting for it to end dying for release as corded muscles down Yugi's spine tightened. The ache escaped him and the pleasure started to mount as Yami's burning, stiff, arousal slipped in and out of him in long smooth strokes. He loved it. He became, slowly, hyper aware of the sounds he was making, the purrs and the moans, and the groaning grunts Yami was returning. Suddenly he was bucking, crying, coming like he'd never achieved in a few quick fondlings of himself. He whimpered, his whole body flexing and twitching around Yami from his toes to his head till the man came hard into him with a few brutal thrusts. The Champion moaned voice breaking almost tightly over the sound as if he wanted to cry out. It was the same sound Jenzar made when he was stabbed.

The motions dragged out unbearably as Yami languidly used Yugi to milk the last of his climax and boneless the Faen slumped into the silken cradle of the mused bedding which was his island of a reality. His whole world condensed into the last, dragging, gyrations of the author along his skin. Yugi's hands fell, fumbling weakly, down Yami's chest and soothed he felt every star line up pristinely with the natural order of things. This was heaven. This was safety. This was his and his handsome prize collapsed a little, stumbling clumsily, onto Yugi as the Faen held the author through the throbbing palpitations of their heartbeats.

Everything would be okay.

* * *

1 _Akefia Tozokuo- _obviously Bakura's Astral/true name it comes from 'Akefia' which is the fandom name for the Thief King and 'Tozokuo' which is basically the Japanese term for 'Thief King'.

Okay! So I have some good news and I have some bad news.  
_Good News: _this is just the end of what I consider 'season one' while I have a whole second plot involving Drea, Bakura and Zorc with appearances including Marik, Pegasus, and more coming up.  
_Bad News:_ I'm going to take a little break from Fantastic Parallels. Probably for a couple of months till I have new chapters to give you guys. I just want to write something else for a while for variety. So Gambit will be updating weekly and by the time it finishes hopefully I'll have new FP for you.

After twenty two chapters I doubt you guys are going to mind me taking a vacation but if you do know I love you lot and that while I leave this for a little while I'm striving to make Gambit and one shots which should be very enjoyable.


End file.
